


As You Wish

by writeonclara



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Action/Adventure, Bad Ideas, Humor, M/M, Multiverse, Pining, Pre-Reform Vulcan, Romance, Slow Build, Starfleet Academy, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 23:38:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4241025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeonclara/pseuds/writeonclara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's probably a phenomenally bad idea to let someone named Lucifer grant you seven wishes, but, well, why the hell not? Maybe then Jim can finally have that perfect command team from the other universe he so desperately wants.</p><p>Then again, wishing that Spock would loosen up a bit shouldn't land him in <i>pre-Reform Vulcan</i>.</p><p>Maybe he'll get it right next time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [[翻译]As You Wish](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6362089) by [abigale_soo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abigale_soo/pseuds/abigale_soo)



> Inspired by the movie Bedazzled.
> 
> Now translated in Chinese [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6362089)! Thank you, [abigale_soo!](http://archiveofourown.org/users/abigale_soo/pseuds/abigale_soo)

Jim sighed and sank into one of the sleek gray couches surrounding the observation deck’s transparent floor. At least these chairs were designed for both style and comfort, unlike the captain’s chair, which cared only about striking fear into the hearts of its enemies.

Only here did he allow himself the long, quiet groan as the muscles in his back shifted and resettled. Unexpectedly, if unsurprisingly, the routine cultural survey on Alpha Eridani III turned into a race for their lives and a desperate attempt not to stomp all over the Prime Directive. Again. Just once Jim would like a routine mission to be, well, _routine_.

It didn’t help that, although the bridge crew had matured from ‘floundering cadets’ to ‘semi-cohesive unit,’ there was Spock, always citing regulations and always questioning Jim’s decision to join the landing party. No matter how many different ways he explained it (he even attempted once Vulcan, which landed him in the next cultural sensitivity training seminar), Spock didn't get that if Jim beamed down a landing party that had the slightest risk of being killed and/or maimed, he would be leading that party, because he wasn’t about to send men off to do something he wouldn’t be willing to do himself.

“It is illogical for both of the highest ranking commanding officers to beam down to a potentially hostile planet,” Spock had said (in Vulcan once, after that one disastrous attempt. All that resulted in was Jim staring at him, half-flabbergasted and half-turned on--hence the cultural sensitivity training seminar).

“Noted,” Jim had replied, and went anyway.

In the end, Jim got stuck in sickbay for two nights. Spock had taken that opportunity to lecture Jim about unnecessary risks, which Bones had only put an end to so that he could start up his _own_ lecture.

Not for the first time, Jim longed for a command team from another universe. Although the other Spock remained tight lipped to the point of paranoia about his life, the looks of devotion he sometimes sent Jim's way clearly indicated _they_ had it all figured out. He doubted that Spock and Jim from the other universe wasted so much time cautiously circling around each other. Probably they worked together in perfect harmony from the start. It would be nice if he and his Spock had that same compatibility.

“I wish,” Jim sighed, leaning forward ever so slowly, his back protesting inch by painful inch.

“Do you now?” said a voice from Jim’s left.

Considering his aching back, the height and distance Jim achieved from his leap off the couch was impressive. He whirled around, phaser out by his hip, the stars he had been brooding over now under his feet.

Sitting on the opposite end Jim's couch was a tall man with a shock of short brown hair that stood nearly vertical from his head. He studied Jim with deceptively soft brown eyes, lips a serious, pensive line.

“Who the hell are you?” Jim demanded.

The man gave this the consideration that it was due and said, “You may call me Lucifer.”

“Lucifer?” Jim repeated, disbelieving.

“The devil you know,” Lucifer said and grinned, mercurial quick.

“How the hell did you get on my ship?” Jim demanded, raising the phaser an inch higher, over where he thought the man’s heart might be. He looked human, but Jim didn’t know many humans who could magically appear wherever they wanted. He frowned. This ‘Lucifer’s’ uniform was command gold, not unlike the one he was currently wearing.

“I have my ways. Put that thing down, it’s dangerous,” Lucifer said, frowning at the phaser.

“I think not,” Jim said.

"Fine," Lucifer sighed. He snapped two fingers. Jim dropped the bouquet of roses that had once been his phaser.

"What the--"

"Well, I asked you nicely," Lucifer said, petulantly.

"What _are_ you?"

"Never mind that," Lucifer said, flapping a hand. "Tell me about your wish."

"So, what, you can grant it?"

"Perhaps. As long as you don’t wish for me to undo events that have happened in this universe. Even I have my limitations. But otherwise, sure. It would be my greatest pleasure. In fact," Lucifer smacked both his knees, as if coming to a sudden decision, "I'll even give you seven. Seven wishes for the price of one."

"What?" Jim asked, suspiciously. "Why?"

"Why not?"

"I mean, you're calling yourself Lucifer. It just seems like a phenomenally bad idea to make wishes to someone named Lucifer."

"I only said you may _call_ me Lucifer."

“Do I have to sign a contract or something?”

“What?” Lucifer asked.

“Usually when the devil gives you something, he wants your soul in return.”

“I've never heard anything about contracts,” Lucifer said, frowning.

When Jim just gaped at him, not completely sold on the whole phaser-into-flowers trick, nor entirely willing to accept--well, anything, from some imposter referring to himself as the old scratch, Lucifer unfolded himself from the couch and strolled along the outside of the glass panes.

"Humor me, will you? Let's just say I'm curious. And bored," Lucifer sighed, toeing one of the roses that had scattered across the glass. It looked garish over the deep black. "Always bored."

"Well, I--" Jim turned a healthy shade of red, clearing his throat.

"Let me guess." Lucifer tapped his chin in a mockery of thoughtfulness. "You were wishing something about your esteemed first officer."

Jim jumped guiltily, which was somewhat unnerving considering he was standing over open space. Prudently, he stepped off the glass panel. "How did you know?"

Lucifer stood at the opposite side of the circle of windows, shoving his hands in his pockets in a way no one in command would ever do, at least not while in their golds. "Experience. You're not as unpredictable as you'd like to think, Captain Kirk. Come on, come on. I haven't got all day, you know. What was your wish?"

"I don't know," Jim said, raking his fingers through his hair. Why he was humoring this nut? Maybe because he was having trouble accept this dreamlike experience as reality. What he should really do is throw this character in the brig and deal with him in the morning. "I was just wishing he would--cut loose, or something."

"That's your wish," Lucifer said, eyes gleaming.

"Sure. Why not."

Later, when Jim was older and wiser, he would wonder what he would have wished for if "Lucifer" hadn't found him on that exact evening, at that exact time, when he hadn't been mulling over Spock. He never wanted riches, he had glory, and what he truly wanted--before he even knew he wanted her--he already had, thanks to a cherished friend who had been killed far too early.

In retrospect, probably it was for the best that Lucifer found him when he did. They would have never found his remains otherwise.

"Catch," Lucifer said, tossing him a red comm. “Use this if your wish isn’t going exactly how you want it to.”

Jim caught the comm, blinking. “Why wouldn’t my wish go the way I want--”

“Oh, nothing to worry about,” Lucifer interrupted, waving a hand. “Are you ready?”

“I--”

“Great! Let's begin,” Lucifer said, with that unnerving smile, and snapped.

* * *

The wind was hot and arid, and battered against the unexpected in a way that was not unlike having an oven thrown at your face. Jim, who had been unconsciously enjoying the pleasant controlled temperature of the _Enterprise_ , stumbled forward, tripped over a jagged red rock, and went down hard on one knee.

"What the--"

The red sands that kicked up around him were oddly familiar, but Jim didn't recognize the tall, spiky mountains that rose up like giant's fingers in the distance. The land was barren, dead, and yet when Jim looked over his shoulder, there was a city on the horizon--or the beginnings of one, at least.

Most importantly, this was not the _Enterprise_. It was almost as if he were on--

A quiet _shhhk_ whispered by the side of his head and Jim suddenly knew, without a doubt, that if he turned his head a fraction of an inch he would be missing an ear. Jim shoved the comm in his pocket, not wanting to lose his only means of communication, and dove to the side.

The blade crashed down, sending a wave of red sand up and Jim rolled, just as it swung back up and over his head. He tried to scramble to his feet, only to immediately fall back to avoid losing his nose, landing hard on his tailbone.

"Wait, wait," Jim yelped and scrambled backwards, gaping at his attacker's face. "Spock?!"

The blade drew away, slicing across Jim’s cheek, what the fuck. Jim flinched back and grabbed the cut, and Spock came around to tower in front of him.

Only, it wasn't Spock. Or rather, it was, but it wasn't _his_ Spock. For one thing, although Jim had caught a glimpse (or two) of Spock half dressed, he had certainly never seen Spock so--bronzed. He would remember if he had. And good lord, who knew Spock was so stacked? He was such a skinny dude--strong, but still scrawny _looking_. Certainly not this lithe and ripped, like some jungle cat. Or maybe he was. Jim would have to sneak a longer look next time. That is, if this Spock didn’t make him dead.

For another thing, the Spock he knew had a cap of shiny black hair, not this long tangle that hung mid-back.

Also, Jim was pretty sure he'd run screaming if he ever saw his Spock scowling at anyone like that, one half-step away from beheading someone and mounting his prize on a stake.

"How do you know my name?" Spock demanded, resting the rounded head of his truly wicked looking blade against the sand. "Who are you? You are not of these parts."

"Uh," Jim said, smartly.

"Are you afflicted?"

Man, this Spock was a mean bastard.

"I'm not _afflicted_ ," Jim snapped, scrambling to his feet. His pants--decidedly not the regulation black Starfleet pants--was covered with a fine layer of red dust. Jim would have peered down at the brown trousers curiously if the blade hadn't immediately come back up, just centimeters from his throat. He brought his hands up in what he hoped was a universal sign for, 'hey, I'm harmless, nothing to see here.'

"I will ask you one final time: what is your name."

"Jim," Jim said, swallowing. The blade nicked his skin, and he felt the blood trickle down between his collarbones. "Captain James T. Kirk. Look, my craft crashed about two kilometers from here--"

Jim didn't need the additional pressure from the blade to stop his flow of words. He could fib like the best of them, but he was 100% certain this was the truth, and that was--startling. The last he remembered, he had been on the _Enterprise,_ not some personal craft.

"You are trespassing on the S'chn T'gai property," Spock said, voice deadly cool. "You should be relieved that I did not kill you on sight."

"Oh, I'm glad all right, believe me, you have no idea how glad I am--” Jim paused, eyebrows going up. “Wait, did you just say, Suchin--"

"I certainly did not."

"Schin--"

"S'chn."

"Is that your full name? Schkin--"

"If you continue to brutalize my family name, I will slice your throat," Spock said, but lowered the blade. His lips were twitching, as if he were fighting a smile, which was baffling enough that Jim actually did stop.

"Where are we, Spock?" Jim asked, perhaps too familiarly for this Spock, considering the odd look he shot him.

"'We' are at the Forge, just outside of ShiKahr. You are lucky you were not killed by a shelat."

Jim opened and closed his mouth. The red sands swam beneath his feet. He needed to sit down. ShiKahr was--impossible. "We're--we're on _Vulcan_?"

Now Spock really was looking at Jim as if he were two cans short of a six pack, to borrow one of Bones' more colorful phrases. Jim was too busy reeling to care. They were on--this was _Vulcan_.

Spock sheathed the spear-thing on his back, blade towering over his head, and grabbed Jim roughly by the arm. "Come with me."

“What? Why?” Jim tried to pull his arm out of Spock’s grip, but the bastard was fucking strong. “Hey, let me go!”

“You are fortunate it was I who found you,” Spock growled. “Had it been the N’ero clan who had found you, you would already be dead.”

Jim’s knees turned to jelly and he would have collapsed if Spock wasn't ruthlessly dragging him about. Of course. This Vulcan had never conformed to the teachings of Surak, so Romulans never left. There was no Romulus, but apparently, Nero was still kicking about to make trouble.

Jim wondered how much more his brain could take before it took pity on him and shut down.

“This is not what I meant about wanting him to cut loose!”

Spock ignored Jim’s shout to the heavens and dragged him all the way back to his home, which Jim estimated was five kilometers from where Spock found him. By the time the arrived, Jim was dragging his feet and panting. His shirt was drenched all the way through, clinging uncomfortably to his skin and a flush started from the back of his neck and spread over his entire face, both from a sunburn and from exhaustion.

“You are weak,” Spock said disdainfully, pushing Jim inside.

“Hey, fuck you. Even training in 5g can’t prepare a guy for heat like this,” Jim grumbled, staggering forward. It took more will than physical effort to keep himself upright; he found a wall to sag casually against before he collapsed.

Then he gaped.

Spock’s home was a mess. Not that it was particularly dirty, but nothing seemed to have a proper place. Discarded clothes, except one pair of pants, were strewn over most the furniture. Interestingly, the pants were laid flat on the ground, as if Spock had sat down and risen again without them. Stacks of dishes were piled in a tub, washed, but without no home. And there were weapons _everywhere_. Blades in every imaginable blade-shape, daggers, hatchets, swords, more of those spear things, all sprawled out across the ground as if Spock had just tossed it to the side after practice.

“I do not comprehend what you’re saying,” Spock said dismissively, either ignoring Jim’s slack-jawed amazement or oblivious to it. “You are barely able to walk the short distance from the Forge to ShiKahr. Therefore, you are weak.”

“Man, I’m already starting to miss the real Spock,” Jim grumbled.

“You speak nonsense. There is no other Spock but me.” Spock surveyed the room with his hands on his hips, looking oddly human, though that was highly unlikely in this universe. “I will keep you as a servant.”

“What!”

“I am in needed of an assistant to tidy my dwelling.” He frowned reprovingly at Jim. “You should be honored to accept such an offer.”

“Honored!” Jim repeated, scathingly. “Uh uh. No way. I’m no servant, Spock.”

“You will either serve me or I will kill you.” Spock said, with a shrug.

“You can’t just threaten me!”

“Why not?” Spock asked, sounding genuinely curious. “You are weak.”

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to pick on the weak?” Jim grumbled.

It was the wrong thing to say. Apparently, Spock had mother issues here, too. Must be one of those universal constants.

Jim winced when his back slammed up against the wall. The tips of his toes just barely brushed the ground. Spock’s hands twisted in his shirt, fabric tearing under his fingers.

“Do not,” he hissed, and it was interesting how Spock’s eyes were still brown, even though Jim thought full Vulcans had black eyes, “speak so casually of my mother.”

“Y-yes,” Jim wheezed. Spock’s knuckles were pressed against his throat, cutting off his airway, because apparently Spock’s favorite method of killing Jim was through strangulation, no matter what universe they were in. “S-sorry--”

Spock released him and Jim slid to the ground, bracing himself with his palms flat on the wall. He wouldn’t sink to his knees and give Spock the satisfaction. Spock stared down at Jim, lip curled in distaste.

“Clean my bedchamber first,” Spock said. “Then you may clean my den.”

Jim scowled at him. Spock grinned. Jim immediately stopped scowling to gape in horrified fascination. Spock snorted at his flabbergasted expression and ducked out of the house.

* * *

In the two hours Jim spent obsessively tidying up (he was a _captain_ , they drilled this sort of shit into you), Jim learned three things:

ONE: Spock held some sort of highly important rank within his clan. Jim had seen Spock around other Vulcans in their universe, he would have noticed if they started genuflecting and calling Spock ‘Lord Spock.’

TWO: Jim really fucking hated cleaning. He would need to see about getting his yeoman a raise, if this is what she had to deal with on a daily basis.

THREE: Spock was a relentless master. He barely looked away in the two hours Jim cleaned, an odd glint in his eyes, even with the steady flow of Vulcans bowing and scraping before him.

“What’s with all the bowing?” Jim finally asked when a Vulcan lady twice Spock’s age prostrated herself at his feet.

The lady looked up for long enough to shoot Jim a withering glare before quickly casting her eyes back down.

“My apologies, T’Meni,” Spock said, not even bothering to look at Jim. Jim didn’t miss the way his jaw flexed. “He will be properly punished for his insubordination.”

Jim straightened, tightly twisting the rag he had been using for dusting between his two fists. Here he was, slaving away in the oven Spock called a house, probably suffering from second degree burns and heat exhaustion, desperate for more than the two swallows of water Spock allowed him, and he was being accused of _insubordination_?

“It is not my place to dictate how you manage your staff, my lord,” T’Meni demured, gaze firmly fixed on Spock’s feet.

Spock’s icy gaze drifted to Jim, before fixing back on T’Meni. “Of course. Let us continue our conversation outside, yes? It is a lovely evening.”

Jim waited until the door shut behind Spock and T’Meni before dropping the rag and pulling the red comm from his pocket. Enough of this shit.

“Lucifer,” Jim said into the comm. “Get me the hell out of here.”

* * *

The shock of being completely submerged after spending so many hours in the overwhelming heat was enough to make Jim nearly gasp in a lungful of cold water. In a strange reversal of how he snuck Scotty aboard the _Enterprise_ , Jim was in one of the same water pipes Scotty had materialized in. He floated, staring through the glass pipe at Lucifer, who peered up at him curiously.

Jim gestured at himself.

Lucifer rubbed his chin.

Jim gestured at himself, a little more frantically.

Lucifer heaved a sigh and snapped, and Jim stumbled a couple steps forward at the sudden change in density, coughing out a mouthful of water. He shook his head, flinging water droplets everywhere.

“Thank you for that,” Lucifer said, brushing water off his cheek.

“You did that on purpose!”

“Come now,” Lucifer said, widening his eyes. “Moi? Do something so cruel? Never.”

Jim pressed his lips in a thin line, then gave up and turned on his heel, sloshing towards his cabin.

“Did the wish not go like you wanted it?” Lucifer asked, innocently.

“What do you think,” Jim snapped.

“Tut, tut. Anything worth fighting for is never _easy_ , Captain. Don’t you want that perfect command team from the other universe?”

Jim squished to a halt, not turning around.

“I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Captain,” Lucifer said. Jim could hear the grin in his voice. When Jim glanced over his shoulder, he was gone.

Jim sloshed tiredly towards his quarters. His skin still felt tight from sunburn, but when he looked down at his hands, they were no longer the vibrant pink they'd been on Vulcan.

Vulcan. Although Jim wanted nothing more than to get off the planet, he couldn’t help but to feel a melancholy pang at the thought of it. It wasn’t the Vulcan Jim had learned about growing up, but it was still _a_ Vulcan, and that was more than this universe had.

“Captain.” The calm voice, so different from the wrathful one from the other universe, held a faint note of surprise. “Why are you wet?”

“I was thirsty,” Jim sighed, turning to face Spock. He was still dressed in his science blues despite the late hour.

Spock raised an eyebrow. “I assure you, there are more efficient ways to consume liquids, Captain.”

Jim’s lips quirked. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say Spock had made a joke. He huffed a small laugh, then shivered as the fans oscillated towards them. Spock didn’t seem affected, but Jim eyed him thoughtfully. “Hey, Spock. Do you ever get cold on board the ship?”

Spock blinked, clearly not expecting the question. “Vulcans are able to regulate their temperatures to comfortable levels no matter the external conditions, provided they are not too extreme.”

“Ah,” Jim said, clapping Spock on the shoulder in a friendly manner, before quickly removing his hand when he realized it was still wet. He cleared his throat, hoping Spock wouldn’t notice the handprint he left behind. “Yes, yes, of course. Carry on then, Commander.”

“Yes, Captain,” Spock said, sounding like he did when confronted by a particularly confusing human characteristic. He looked like he wanted to ask Jim about five thousand questions, but checked himself. “Goodnight, Captain.”

“Goodnight, S’chn T’gai Spock,” Jim said, and squished off to his quarters, leaving a gobsmacked Spock in his wake.


	2. Chapter 2

"You know," Lucifer said, making Jim leap about a kilometer in the air and spill his coffee all down the front of his shirt. 

"Don't do that!" Jim yelped, untucking his shirt to pull the now-scalding fabric away from his skin.

"Oh, did I startle you? I am sorry," Lucifer said.

"I'll bet you are."

It had been a long day of doing nothing on the bridge, followed by hour after hour catching up on reports. Traveling for weeks to get from one destination to another could sometimes be a dull, monotonous trudge, and there were only so many times he could duck into sickbay before he was hauled back out for disturbing actual, legitimate patients (who mostly got in trouble because, like Jim, they were bored, and people got stupid when they were bored). 

He’d actually been looking forward to meeting with Lucifer again, even though he was half-convinced it had been all a dream caused by a case of advanced, yet undetected, space madness, and was just grabbing a cup of terrible coffee before heading to the observation deck when Lucifer decided to take ten years off his life by popping out from the ether.

He was sitting at Jim's usual table, in Jim's usual spot, pulling apart an orange, one leg kicked up on the opposite chair. Jim sniffed. The orange looked and smelled like the real deal, not that dried shit the replicator produced. 

Jim frowned down at his half-empty cup of coffee. He looked at the orange.

"Orange?" Lucifer asked, magnanimously, holding out a slice.

"Thanks," Jim said, taking it and popping into his mouth. It tasted exactly like a freshly picked apple. He scrunched his nose. "Funny."

Lucifer flashed one of his quick grins, then leaned back into his chair. "About your wish last night. You wished--and I quote--that Spock would cut loose. How can you expect a species as uptight--excuse me, as logical--as Vulcans to ‘cut loose’? Likely it didn't come out quite right because you were trying to change Spock into something he is just intrinsically _not_."

"No--that's not--" Jim scowled. It wasn't that he wanted Spock to change. Spock should always be Spock. Just--maybe he could let Jim in, just a little bit. "You're twisting my words around."

"Hm." Lucifer popped an orange slice into his mouth. "You're not a selfish man, Captain, but you're thinking too narrowly. Why does Spock need to change? Is that what you _really_ want?"

"I don't even know what I want," Jim muttered to himself.

"You want the best for your crew," said Lucifer, earnestly.

Jim snorted.

Lucifer polished off the rest of his orange.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not Spock who needs to change.” Jim considered a time when Spock had betrayed him by telling the truth just because it wasn't in his nature to lie and Jim hadn't instructed him to do otherwise. Maybe Lucifer had a point. It was his fault for assuming Spock would have the same near-telepathic understanding the Spock from the other universe had with his Jim. 

“I’m not always the best at communication,” Jim admitted. “Maybe--”

"Is that what you wish?" Lucifer asked, with that glint in his eye Jim was starting to suspect. “To communicate better?”

"You won't send me to pre-Reform Vulcan again, will you?" Jim asked, suspiciously. He still felt sunburned.

"No, no, of course not," Lucifer said, flapping a hand. He smiled. 

Jim's eyes widened. There was no way that smile meant anything good. "No, wait--"

Lucifer snapped.

* * *

"Captain, a word."

Jim blinked.

He was no longer in the officer’s mess. For some reason he was standing on the transporter pad, with Scotty and Uhura at the controls. He looked down at himself. Still in command gold. He looked at Spock. No spears in sight and shirt (regrettably) on. Everything _appeared_ to be the same. 

Spock lifted an expectant eyebrow.

“Of course, Spock,” Jim said, with a friendly smile, and then went on to say, “You know I’m always willing to hear what you have to say, especially because you’re just so damn smart, Spock, and everything you say is, well, relevant, I guess. None of that fluffy small talk for you, right? In fact, I _really_ like talking to you and wish we would do it more--talk, I mean--but in a more informal setting and oh my God did someone slip me a truth serum or something?”

Uhura looked a mix between amused and longsuffering, as if this was _normal_. “No, Captain.”

“It’s just that I’m normally so much better at keeping these thoughts to myself. Not that I don’t have them, but usually I don’t, you know, spew them out in the worst sort of word vomit.” 

“I’d say this is ‘bout average, Cap’n,” Scotty said, sounding cheerful, but then Scotty almost always sounded cheerful, even when he was angry.

It clicked. Jim puffed out a breath and rolled his eyes. “Oh, I get it. ‘Communication’.”

Uhura lifted her eyebrow in response, as if to say ‘who, me?’ which was so uncannily like Spock that Jim wondered if it was one of those things she picked up from their relationship.

“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” Jim said. “I wouldn’t be able to explain anyway. I mean, I could, but I’m not sure that you would believe me. Say, when you look at me with your eyebrow raised like that you remind me of Spock. Did you guys practice together or--”

“As you know, Starships have been disappearing in this sector for the past 190 years, the most recent being the USS _Outlook_ ,” said Spock, thankfully putting an end to Jim’s unseemly babbling. “Although it is our mission to conduct a geological survey on Gamma Orionis III, it is unnecessary for both captain and commander to be in the landing party.”

At least this was comfortingly familiar. “Well, then, logically you should stay on board of course, since although I know it’s part of the job description, I actually really do not like the idea of you being in danger. You know that’s part of the reason why I always insist on beaming down, because--” He clapped his hand over his mouth, closing his eyes so that he didn’t have to see Spock’s disdainfully eyebrow.

“On the contrary, Captain. As I am both first officer and science officer, it is only logical that it is I who beams down in order to properly conduct the survey, and it is you who remains aboard.”

"Yes, that’s probably true. My fault for trying to out logic a master logician, right? Anyway, beam us down Scotty, because even though it's logical there's no way I'm not--"

Scotty beamed them down.

* * *

In the end, of course it was a trap. 

Jim barely finished saying, "--beaming down" when the Klingons were on them. The fight was hard, brutal, but mercifully quick. Jim got two shots out before something that felt like a steel club but was probably a massive fist bashed him across the back of his head. He collapsed to his knees, eyes rolling back in his head.

“Captain!” 

Jim said nothing.

“Captain? 

Jim continued to say nothing.

“Jim, you must wake up.”

"Ow fuck that hurts," Jim said before he even opened his eyes, reaching up to touch the back of his head. His hand came back wet. "Of course the first thing I'd do after waking up here is _talk_ , because what's a minute of blessed silence when I can tell everyone everything that blows through my mind--"

"It has been approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, Captain."

Jim would have rolled his head to the side to look at Spock, but the back of his skull had other ideas. Any sudden movements, it informed him, would result in something way worse than 'word' vomit.

"Are you injured, Captain?"

"Great. I'm just great." Jim gingerly pushed himself up, taking in his surroundings. There was bench that served as a bed that the Klingons didn't even have the decency to put him on, and that was about it. "Gotta say Spock, they really stinged us on the accommodations."

"I doubt they had our comfort in mind," Spock said from across a narrow hallway, because of course the Klingons wouldn't have the decency to put them in the same holding cell.

"Well, that's just wonderful. You're probably just dying to say 'I told you so' now. I don't blame you, considering were locked up in these rank little cells. I mean, I'd probably be pissed at me too, if I were you, but to be honest I'm glad I'm here with you--"

"Captain--"

They were both cut off when the primitive barred door to Jim’s cell clanged open and two Klingons walked in like a terrible punchline.

Jim fingered in his red communicator, completely silent for the first time in the so many hours he was actually conscious. He could end this right now, but somehow, even in this reality fabricated by Lucifer, he couldn't bring himself to abandon Spock.

The smaller Klingon considered Spock. Then he consider Jim. 

"Take him," the Klingon said, waving towards Jim. "You'll get far more out of this one than you will a Vulcan."

That was just fucking great. Jim was afflicted with the terrible condition of not being able to shut the fuck up, and now the Klingons wanted to question him. There was no way this would end well, unless Jim could find a way to convince his captor to break his jaw.

The larger Klingon strode into the room and yanked Jim to his feet.

"Woah there, gentle with the goods, friend. I wouldn't want to vomit all over you when you've been such a gracious host--"

Spock was on his feet in a flash, actually grabbing onto the bars. "Take me instead."

"I wouldn't listen to him," Jim said quickly. "You are absolutely right, there is no way you're going to get anything out of him, being Vulcan and all. And I am a _pro_ at talking, you should hear me--"

"Move, human," the Klingon snapped, shoving at the small of his back.

"Is that a disruptor or are you just happy to see me?" Jim asked.

"A disruptor," the large Klingon said, flatly.

"Oh," Jim sighed. “Not the joking kind, huh? Hey, stop me if you’ve heard this one--two Klingons walk into a bar--”

He held Spock’s eye for as long as he could as they passed his holding cell, still babbling who even knew what anymore. Spock’s head was tilted forward and his brows were so low that his eyes were almost completely shadowed, reminding Jim of the Spock he’d left behind on pre-Reform Vulcan. He tried to tell Spock with his eyes that he was going to be okay and that although he appreciated his concern he really shouldn’t do anything stupid and--

“Keep moving,” the Klingon said, shoving him forward. They frogmarched him down a long corridor and through a nondescript door to the left. The room it led to looked a lot like it was designed specifically for torturing, with really wicked looking weapons strung up on the walls and other uncomfortable looking devices strewn about, hopefully just used for an intimidating visual effect. Jim did _not_ want to be strung up on that thing that looked like an ancient brass washboard.

“Look, fellas,” Jim said as he was shoved onto a chair. He gulped. “I’m sure you’ve heard all about me, Captain James T. Kirk? No? Well, I’ve got a reputation for not having a lot going on up here, if you know what I mean. All luck, no brains. There’s absolutely no words that would come out of my mouth that would be any use for you--”

The larger Klingon backhanded Jim across the face. 

“Not the face, Kori. We want him to talk,” the smaller Klingon said.

“Yes, Captain. But at the same time, I would really like him to shut up.”

“You can’t kill me,” Jim said, quickly. “If you kill me, the Federation will be all over you like ugly on a Klingon’s--or, I guess, your--mug.”

Kori smacked him again.

“That’s the beauty of it,” the captain said, grinning cruelly. “We’re in the Delta triangle, where ships mysteriously disappear on a regular basis. Your Federation might regret the loss of you and your ship, but no one will question it.”

“Oh,” Jim said. Shit. So that’s what Spock had been trying to tell him. 

“So, Captain James T. Kirk. Are you ready to talk?” the captain said, still grinning. His mouth was full of about a million jagged, pointy teeth.

“Oh, absolutely,” Jim said, earnestly. “I _love_ talking. You know, when I was back at the Academy I actually had a professor kick me out of the class because I talked too much? _I_ don’t think that was particularly fair, since I was just trying to start a discussion about why it was important to learn the basics of primary alien languages, because we can’t always depend on the universal translators. For example, I think it’s important that everyone knows how to say _biHnuch_ and _HuH_ , in case they’re in a situation like this, where their captives are nothing but cowardly Klingon slime.”

The Klingons had been staring at him in dazed fascination up until he got to his grand finale. Their eyes widened and Kori took a step forward, raising his fist. Oh well. If Jim was going to die, at least he’d have earned it.

Jim rocked to the side and out of his chair, the entire ship feeling like it was rocking with him. His head rang from the force of the blow. _Man_ , these Klingon bastards are strong.

“Captain, we’re being attacked!”

“Shields?” Jim asked, automatically. He only realized that Kori wasn’t talking to him when he was yanked back to his feet.

“You better hope your crew likes you, Captain,” the smaller Klingon said as Kori shoved Jim forward. “Otherwise--”

Jim didn’t need to know what would happen otherwise. He could easily see what would happen in the fierce delight of the Klingon’s grin.

“I guess we’ll see,” Jim muttered and stumbled out the door.

* * *

Jim would like to say that he played a crucial role in Operation: Rescue and Escape, but truthfully all he really did was let himself be uselessly yanked around. Although he did manage to throw a pretty impressive elbow into Kori’s face when Spock burst onto the bridge with all his righteous Vulcan glory (and a mean looking disruptor), when the Klingons had been distracted by cheerfully threatening to disembowel all 500+ of the _Enterprise’s_ crew.

And then they were back on the _Enterprise_ and Jim was throwing up all over the transporter pad while simultaneously apologizing weakly before Bones hustled him off to the sickbay, muttering about captains who didn’t know how to keep their damn mouths shut and who probably _asked_ for the concussion and busted eye socket.

He woke up next to the dulcet tones of Bones grimly listing each of Jim’s injuries, a strange light in his eyes (“--fractured skull, broken cheekbone, cracked jaw--bet that didn’t even shut y’up for a second, kid--”) before he mercifully blacked out again.

Jim didn’t have many visitors while stuck in sickbay, which was both unsurprising and a little sad. Bones came by a handful of times--good ol’ Bones--but he never stayed for long. 

What the hell was he even still doing here. Clearly this wish wasn't going ‘just the way he wanted it.’

Just as he was reaching for the red comm on the small table near his bed, the doors to the sickbay swished open and Spock walked in. Jim, half out of his bed with one arm stretched out, froze in the act like a kid trying to sneak off with the entire cookie jar.

"Captain, you will aggravate your injuries if you continue."

Jim sighed and settled back on the bed, eyeing the comm. He had been so close.

"I wish to discuss with you the events that occurred on Gamma Orionis III."

"Not right now, Spock," Jim said. Spock looked unsettled, probably not used to his captain being so quiet. It still hurt like a bitch to talk. Probably Bones didn’t cure him all the way in hopes it would shut him up for a bit. Jim turned away and sighed.

There was a beat of silence.

"It's just that sometimes I don't think you like me very much. I wish you did because I think we could be really good friends, which would be great for both of us because I'm pretty sure you're just as lonely as I am--"

Spock's eyes became comically round. He took a step back. "Captain, I--"

"I try to be a good captain, but sometimes it hurts my feelings when--"

"There is an experiment that urgently needs my attention," Spock interrupted quickly. "I believe you need your rest; we can discuss Gamma Orionis III in the morning."

"I just want to be your friend, Spock," Jim shouted, but Spock was already gone, practically fleeing from the room in his haste to get away from Jim and his _feelings_.

Jim sighed again, then reached over and grabbed the red comm.

"Lucifer, get me out of here," he said, and then, because he couldn’t _not_ , added, "When I said I wanted to be better at communicating I didn't mean that I never wanted to _stop_ communicating. I thought these wishes were about making Spock _like_ me and instead I'm stuck in a place where not even Bones wants to hang around in case I talk both his ears off. It’s like that already pretty nonexistent filter between my mouth and my brain has completely disappeared and Spock _definitely_ doesn't like me, which, again, point of the wishes, and oh my god will you just get me the hell out of here already--"

* * *

Lucifer’s lips twitched. 

Jim scowled. “Shut the hell up, I could have died!"

"But you didn't, so what's the problem?" 

Lucifer was sitting on a yoga ball in the middle of the rec room, looking irritatingly pleased with himself. Jim briefly entertained the idea of punching him in the face, but decided that would probably be a bad idea since, you know, omnipotent being. Instead he snapped, "I didn't realize wishing to have ‘better communication skills’ meant not being able to shut the hell up and then being tortured by Klingons."

“That was hardly torture,” Lucifer said, rolling his eyes. "You're fine, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but it hurt like a bitch."

"Oh you humans. There's just no pleasing you." Lucifer bounced once on the ball, like a kid. "Why didn't you come back sooner if it was going so poorly?"

"I couldn't leave him behind. The Klingons, they had him. Spock." Jim grit his teeth, feeling like the words were being forced out of him. "Even if it is just a reality you created, I couldn't leave him behind."

Lucifer considered him, eyes unfathomable. "Yes," he said slowly. "Right."

"What do you mean, 'yes, right'," Jim demanded.

"Nothing, nothing. Well, Captain." Lucifer bounced to his feet. “I’m sure you’ll get it right, next time.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Jim shouted, but Lucifer had already strode off, disappearing through the wall. Jim sighed and kicked the yoga ball, which bounced back and smacked him in the chest. The whole universe was against him. Fuck it, he was going to bed.

Of course he ran into Spock on the way back to his quarters, because that was just his luck. Spock looked at him, then did a double take, eyes wide, which was weird enough that Jim stopped.

"Captain, what happened to you?" Spock demanded, sounding as alarmed as a Vulcan could sound.

"What do you mean, what happened to me?" Jim asked, frowning.

"Are you injured? Is there a threat?"

Maybe these late hours were finally getting to Spock. "I'm fine, Spock, really."

"Perhaps you should go to sickbay--"

It was Jim's turn to look alarmed. "Do you have any idea what Bones would do to me if I woke him up right now without any emergency? No way."

"Captain, I insist--"

"Seriously, Spock. Look at me. Does it look like I'm on the brink of death?" Jim said, brusquely.

Spock managed to pull himself out of his strange panic to do as he was told, examining Jim with the slightest of frowns.

"See? I'm alright, Spock."

Spock straightened, visibly pulling himself together. "Forgive me, Captain. The state of your appearance led me to believe otherwise."

"No worries, Spock," Jim said, clapping Spock on his shoulder. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Captain."

When Jim finally made it back into his quarters and had a chance to look in the mirror, he abruptly understood why Spock looked a heartbeat away from having a stress induced heart attack. Although there was no blood, nor even any visible bruises, Jim looked as if he had taken on those two Klingons with nothing but his bare hands and alcohol-induced bravado. His shirt was untucked and torn in multiple places, his hair was standing up nearly on end, and every exposed part of his body was covered in what appeared to be soot. 

God _damn_ that Lucifer.


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay, I know what the problem is," Jim said, dropping across from Lucifer in the rec room. He had been aimlessly wandering the empty halls of the ship, not sure where Lucifer would pop up, when he’d passed by the open door to the rec room and caught a glimpse of a familiar burst of brown hair. 

The rec room was empty this late, even though his crew was practically crawling up the walls in boredom. Lucifer had claimed a table with a tri-dimensional chess set. He moved a bishop up to the third level, which was an illegal move, and said, “Oh?”

"You can't do that," Jim protested. "You can only move the bishop to the first and second levels right now."

Lucifer raised an eyebrow.

"Right," Jim said and cleared his throat. "The problem is, I'm giving you too much leeway to do what you want with my wishes. I'm not thinking them through. I need to be more specific."

Lucifer seemed to think this over, before he nodded. “Yes, I believe that would be a clean solution. Do you have anything in mind?”

Jim did. He’d spent the second half of Alpha shift about how to word his wish, staring blankly at the viewscreen and ignoring the odd looks his crew kept shooting at him. This whole time he’d been treating these wishes like a game. If he could get his wish right, maybe things really could be better for his crew--and him.

So he said, slowly, “I wish that Spock and I could work in one cohesive unit, both in and out of death-defying situations, like--like we knew what the other was thinking.”

Lucifer grinned and lifted his hand to snap.

“Don’t make us into _literally_ one unit,” Jim said, hastily. “No creepy Jim-Spock monster, got it?”

Lucifer looked faintly disappointed, but prepared to snap again.

“And no pre-Reform Vulcan!” Jim said. “And absolutely _no_ Klingons.”

“You’re no fun,” Lucifer said, moodily, and snapped his fingers.

* * *

Jim opened his eyes.

He wasn't on the _Enterprise_. The bed he was sprawled out across was the a lot like the hard, uncomfortable bunk he remembered from Starfleet Academy. He rolled his head to the side, frowning at the small window. In fact, if he didn't know any better, he'd say this _was_ the Acade--

"You just gonna laze around all day in bed or are you actually going to join the land of the living?"

Bones was standing at the foot of Jim’s bed, looking like Bones always did, except instead of his blues he was in cadet red. Jim shot up into a sitting position, then he sank slowly back down into his pillows, staring up at the ceiling. Of course. The wish. He thought it was kind of odd that wishing he could work in a unit with Spock would land him back in the Academy, but Lucifer worked in strange and insane ways. With his luck, this Earth had been conquered by Vulcans.

“Laze around all day, then,” Bones said.

“I’m getting up,” Jim said, pushing himself upright again. “We don’t have any Vulcan overlords, do we?” 

“Only one, if you’re referring to that Linguistics Professor.”

So that was still the same. Jim scrubbed his face with both hands. “Right. Give me like, ten minutes, okay?”

The rest of the morning passed in a surreal haze. He felt like he was stuck in a rerun, going through all the motions of a morning he had already gone through in the past. He made it all the way through his first two classes without any word from Spock, which was a little confusing considering his wish.

He’d parked himself on a bench in the quad to mull over his situation. It felt nice to sit in the sun; the _Enterprise’s_ UV rooms had nothing on the real deal. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, considering his options. He could either try to hunt down Spock or wait around for Spock to come to him, with had the added disadvantage of attending classes.

“Earth to Jim. You in there?”

Bones snapped his fingers in front of Jim’s face, which sent Jim flying to his feet and stumbling back several steps in a conditioned response and had Bones lifting an eyebrow. 

They stared at each other.

“Well,” Bones said.

“You scared the hell out of me,” Jim said.

“I see that.”

“What are you doing on this side of campus, anyway?”

“You sick or something? We’ve got lunch, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

Bones huffed. “I see how high I rank in your priorities.”

“Don’t be like that,” Jim said, rolling his eyes. “You know you’re--”

Something zinged through the back of Jim's skull and for a moment, just the briefest of seconds, he felt the presence of another consciousness scrambling around in his mind, startled and almost overwhelmingly confused, before it abruptly disappeared behind a slammed door.

Jim doubled over, grabbing his temples. What the _fuck_.

“What’s the matter? Headache? You _are_ sick,” Bones accused.

“No, it’s the weirdest thing, like someone’s in my--” Jim looked up, still holding his temples, just in time to see Spock, staring wide-eyed at him from across the quad, “--head.”

Bones looked at him as if he grew a second head, which was what it sort of felt like, actually, but Jim was too busy to watching Spock and Uhura stalk towards them to do more than pat him reassuringly on his shoulder.

“What?” Bones demanded, then caught sight of Spock. “Why’s that professor comin’ at us like he wants your head on a stick?”

“Because that’s just how it always is,” Jim sighed.

“Explain yourself, Cadet,” Spock demanded, stepping right up into Jim’s personal space. Spock looked--good. Healthy. None of the tightness around his eyes post-Nero. He also looked really fucking pissed too, which was unfortunate since that usually resulted in Jim either being strangled or having spears thrown at his head. 

Uhura looked between Jim and Spock, then at Bones, who shrugged.

"Explain myself about what?" Jim snapped, biting back on the instinctive reprimand for insubordination. This Spock was still his superior. Jim sighed and rubbed his temples.

He could still feel something, almost like a telephone wire linking him to the strangely familiar presence, but whoever was on the other line pretty effectively muted himself. Jim had been put on hold, but the lingering static indicated that the connection hadn't been broken. It was a weird fucking feeling. Not exactly bad--just, odd.

“How you have bonded us,” Spock hissed.

Now Jim gave Spock his full attention, feeling his eyebrows go way up. He looked at Bones, who had a similar expression of confused surprise, then at Uhura, whose own expression of surprise was rapidly morphing into a familiar anger. 

Oh. Right. This Uhura was either currently hooking up with Spock or was on her way there. Probably she didn't appreciate the dude who'd tried to pick her up at the bar hooking up with--literally, it sounded like--her boyfriend.

"What's a bond?" Jim asked, because someone needed to.

"Desist your prevarication," Spock said.

"No, really, I have no idea what you're talking about," Jim said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture that was becoming way too familiar in these wishes. 

"What the hell did you do, Kirk?" Uhura demanded, accusingly.

"You know this man?" Spock said, whirling on Uhura.

"Now, hold on a minute. What makes you think Jim did anything? Sounds to me like some sort of alien voodoo," said Bones, leaping to Jim's defense like the best friend he was. He glared pointedly at Spock.

"Not by choice. That's James Kirk. I told you about him," Uhura told Spock, before turning to Bones and saying, "Vulcans are extremely private individuals and, while bonds can spontaneously form, it can't without a mind meld. Kirk _must_ have done something."

"That is enough," Jim said, busting out his best captain voice. Gratifyingly, they all snapped their mouths shut and straightened. Jim looked around, not liking the looks from curious bystanders enjoying the free show. 

"I don't know what is going on here," lie, "but there are too many people interested in what I'm guessing is a private affair." He glanced at Spock, who hesitated, then nodded tightly. "Let's take this with less of an audience, yeah?" 

He shot a pointed look at Bones (who just grinned at him, so there would be no getting rid of him) and Uhura (who looked about ready to tie herself to Spock's side and punch Jim in the face), then back to Spock (who still looked a bit like he was on the verge of strangling Jim). So they were off to a good start.

"That is acceptable," Spock said.

Jim tried his winning smile in response, but since all that got him were three looks of disbelief, he shrugged and turned on his heel.

He should have known. He should have fucking known Lucifer would somehow take him literally. Really, it was his fault for giving Lucifer the opportunity. He had no one to blame but himself.

They ended up back in Jim and Bones' dorm. It felt too small for the four of them, even though he and Bones had thrown parties where twenty guests somehow turned into fifty and they all still managed to cram into the facsimile of a living room. Uhura claimed the entire couch, since Spock was content with standing and glaring at Jim, which left Bones and Jim to hang about awkwardly as if this wasn’t their dorm that they lived in.

"I wish to know how you managed to create a bond without my knowledge," Spock said and wow, Jim forgot what a smug bastard Spock was before--everything.

"I didn't," Jim snapped. "I'm human. Psi-null, remember?"

"Clearly you had assistance--"

"From whom?" Jim asked, pointedly looking around the room, because if Spock was a smug bastard, Jim was a sarcastic one. "Bones?"

"Now, don't bring me into this, Jim. You know I'm just here for the sho--for support," Bones said hastily, clearly not liking the way Spock zeroed in on him, dark eyes suspicious.

"It's not like I have a Vulcan hidden under my bed to perform illicit, non consensual bonds," Jim said, ignoring Bones. Well actually, if he hadn't made his wish, they probably wouldn't have been in this mess, but Jim refused to take any responsibility for _Lucifer_. "Anyway, can't you just like, I don't know, wave your hand and disappear it or something?"

"If it was that simple, I would have already done so," Spock said, and Jim could actually feel his tightly banked anger.

He winced. "Can you at least block it or something? You're giving me a headache."

"I am," Spock said, and Jim winced at the second flash of irritation. "The bond is too strong for me to fully shield against. It is akin to a matrimonial bond."

“A what!” 

“A matrimonial bond,” Spock repeated, oblivious to the three horrified stares directed at him. 

Predictably, Bones and Uhura started at it again. Jim would have liked to join, but his ears were ringing too loudly for him to understand what they were saying. He stared at Spock. Spock glared back.

He was married to--the bond was--

“Stop,” Jim ordered, quietly but firmly, and after a moment of stubborn arguing, Bones and Uhura did. Jim lifted his hands to rub his temples again, closing his eyes against the two people in the room who wanted to kill him dead and the one who was way too amused to be “supportive.”

"Okay, so, we’re married," Jim said, ignoring Uhura’s visible flinch. "What are our options?"

"Only a Vulcan healer can dissolve a bond this strong," Spock said.

"So we go to a Vulcan healer then. Easy enough," Jim said. “There has to be one or two kicking about at the embassy, right?”

"There are no healers on Earth capable of dissolving a bond," Spock said, and Jim could feel his disdain, though he couldn't tell if it was for the healer or for him. Until he could, since Spock had helpfully clarified by mentally pointing out that it was for him.

"They both look fit to be tied," Bones said, gleefully, which at least distracted Spock into confusion and broke the feedback loop of growing anger. 

"So we go to Vulcan as soon as possible then," Jim said, before Spock and _Bones_ could start with each other. "What's your schedule look like, _husband_?"

* * *

Spock's schedule didn't look too good, it turned out, and in any case, neither did Jim's. Deviant genius or no, Jim couldn't just run off to Vulcan for more than two days without seriously jeopardizing his chances at graduating in three years. So they were stuck with the bond until spring break rolled around, three months from now.

Not that Jim would be around for that long. Just half a day of classes and he was already fiddling with the red comm, eyeing the clock. The problem with being demoted from captain to cadet was that the classes that were boring, tedious, and sometimes inaccurate were, after several years of being captain of a _Constitution_ -class starship, even more boring, tedious, and now grossly inaccurate. 

But he was curious, and at least these little realities Lucifer created were always interesting, if a little deadly.

Jim slumped over his desk, tapping his stylus against his knee. Just twenty more minutes to go.

_Eighteen minutes, twenty eight seconds._

Jim jumped, banging his knees so hard on the bottom of his desk that everyone, including his professor, turned to look at him. The class went totally silent.

"Spider," Jim said, flashing a winning smile and scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "I'm _really_ allergic to them."

Thankfully, the professor seemed to buy his excuse (or just didn't care) and continued droning through his lecture. Jim let his eyes unfocus as he turned his attention inwards, concentrating on the weave of silver and gold that ended with Spock's consciousness.

_Spock?_ Jim tried projecting, hesitantly.

_If you're going to interrupt my teaching with your senseless procrastination, you should at least be accurate. And that is_ Professor _Spock, Cadet Kirk._

_Okay,_ Professor, Jim thought, as lasciviously as possible, coupled with a handful of his favorite professor/cadet fantasies.

Spock went silent. Jim leaned back, smiling smugly to himself, until Spock started listing every regulation each fantasy broke, complete with still frames from said fantasies marked up in red for examples.

Jim let out a bark of laughter that he quickly covered with a cough. The girl to his left shot him a dirty look, but he ignored her. 

How completely like Spock.

* * *

"--and when Rigel XII became a monopoly for lithium mining purposes three years ago--"

_Two point six years ago._

"Excuse me, two point six years ago--" Jim stopped mid-sentence, lips thinned out in a flat line. The professor looked taken aback at Jim's glower, and maybe a little freaked out, but Jim was distracted by the totally incongruent flash of amusement from Spock.

_Really, Spock?_ Jim projected.

_We have already discussed the importance of accuracy, _came the righteously superior response.__

" _Three_ years ago," Jim continued, and now the professor was really starting to look confused. "The price of lithium crystals has increased exponentially..."

* * *

“Hey, remember me? We met two weeks ago--”

_Twelve days, fifteen hours, twenty two minutes, fifteen seconds._

"I _hate_ you," Jim said out loud, and the blonde he'd been chatting up gasped and said, eyes narrowed, "Yeah, well, fuck you too, asshole."

_Seriously, Spock, you're the_ worst.

There was that flash of amusement again and Jim rubbed the side of his face, alternating between glowering at the girl’s back and grinning in spite of himself. Seriously the worst.

* * *

_Hey, husband._

There was no response. Maybe he wasn't projecting loud enough.

_HUSBAND._

_Yes, Cadet Kirk?_ Spock responded, with an unnecessary emphasis on 'cadet.'

_Hey, so, since we're married and all, does this mean we get a honeymoon?_ He inserted as much eyebrow waggle as he could without any eyebrows involved.

Spock went silent, probably to give that the proper thought it deserved. _Had this been a true mating bond, then there would have been a period of time after the ceremony equivalent to the human honeymoon._

"What, seriously?" Jim said out loud, surprised, then ignored the curious glance from the couple at the nearby table. He was enjoying his cup of real coffee--real coffee, and that made the whole wish worth it, no matter what ended up happening--at the cafe down the street from Starfleet Academy.

_Vulcans are always serious,_ Spock responded, which, bullshit, Spock had made a joke just the other day. Not this Spock maybe, but close enough.

_Huh,_ Jim said thoughtfully and then, half-joking, _So..._

_I said_ true _mating bond._

_Right,_ Jim said, then cut transmission as best he could. What the hell was he doing propositioning _Spock_ , anyway?

* * *

By the end of the day, Jim was exhausted and practically crawling up the walls in his desire to get back up into the deep black. Probably being grounded didn't bother him that much on Vulcan because he had been too distracted by angry Spocks with angrier spears.

Suddenly, there was a flash of sharp irritation, followed by a stream of Vulcan that Jim paid close attention to in the unlikely event they were curse words. Spock couldn't always block his thoughts from Jim, since it required a lot of concentration, so he made up for it by thinking only in Vulcan, the unfair bastard. 

He wasn't cursing. Jim couldn't understand him, but he could recognize the cadence of someone working through an equation. Sure enough, a moment later the equation itself popped into Jim's mind, flashing too rapidly through each stage for him to pick up.

It was almost relaxing, even with Spock's background annoyance as he tried to discover what he got wrong.

_I thought Vulcans didn't get irritated,_ Jim said, sleepily.

The numbers disappeared and Spock said, _I am not irritated._

_Uh huh._

Spock said nothing for several minutes, then out of nowhere said, _That 'spear' is a_ lirpa.

Jim opened his eyes, frowning up at the ceiling as he worked that one out. _You know, for such a private dude you really are a nosy bastard._

_It is impossible for me to not overhear your thoughts when they are so loud._ There was a moment of radio silence, long enough for Jim to drift off, though he could still feel Spock kicking about in the back of his mind. He wondered what would happen if he fell asleep here, how that would translate in his universe. He didn't think it would, since no time ever passed in his universe while he was in a wish.

_I was not aware you have been to Vulcan,_ Spock said, startling Jim back awake.

_I haven't,_ Jim said, because the Jim of this universe hadn’t.

_Yet you were able to visualize Vulcan with impressive accuracy._

_Holovid,_ Jim cheerfully lied without any remorse. He wasn't sure how these wishes translated to Spock, but wasn't about to test it.

_I see._

_Do you miss it? Vulcan, I mean._

_That would be a human emotion._

_I'd like to go one day,_ Jim admitted, already half asleep. _Though I'd need a translator. I don't know much Vulcan. Just food, like_ plomeek _soup and--_ he frowned, trying to remember the exact word he'd picked up from another Spock, from another world, --t'hy'la.

Jim felt a pulse of unnamed emotion and then Spock went silent.

_Spock?_

There was no response, and eventually, Jim fell asleep.

* * *

Sleeping in a wish was a lot like blinking, but with the added benefit of feeling well-rested, which was a little unsettling, but useful.

Spock was oddly silent the next day, not even rising to the bait when Jim purposefully gave a grossly inaccurate timeframe. He said nothing when Jim flirted outrageously with the silver haired Andorian TA from his Temporal Mechanics class. He was silent during Jim's spirited argument with Bones about alien anatomy. He remained quiet when Jim read a trashy gay romance novel about a captain and his first officer and loudly projected worst of the sex scenes, probably traumatizing all telepaths within the five mile radius.

By the time 1800 hours rolled about, Jim gave up and pulled out his red comm. He was done with this wish. There was only so many days he could take being a cadet again and--he didn't like how weirdly lonely he felt, alone in his own mind.

_Cadet Kirk._

Jim fumbled his comm but caught it before it could smash to the ground. He grinned. _Hey there, husband. Was getting lonely without you hanging around, being nosy._

_I have contacted my father, the ambassador to Earth,_ Spock said, ignoring Jim's greeting. His thoughts were icy. Distant. _A healer has agreed to travel to Earth to dissolve this bond._

Jim probably shouldn't have felt like he was punched in the stomach, since this Spock didn't even know Jim, let alone even like him, but he still did. It hurt. 

He felt so fucking stupid. Of course Spock would want to dissolve the bond as quickly as possible. Probably he wanted to start shacking up with Uhura. Well, that was just fucking fine. It's not like Jim wanted the bond, either.

_Fine,_ Jim said, clipped. _Just let me know when. You know where to find me._

And then he shielded himself the only way he knew how: by mentally humming a tuneless song. He flipped open the red comm. "Lucifer, get me out of here."

* * *

"I can't believe you bonded us before we even met," Jim yelped when he reappeared in the rec room. Lucifer was still seated at the chess set Jim found him at. Strange. Jim expected to be dropped somewhere inexplicable and embarrassing. He shrugged and moved a pawn.

“You _said_ you wanted to hear each other’s thoughts.”

“Yeah, yeah. My fault, I know,” Jim said, rolling his eyes. He slouched back into his chair. It was disturbingly empty in his head now, without the bond. There was a void where there was once silver and gold. He felt off-balance, as if he had a bad case of vertigo, and he said, “That sucked.”

“You want to be one cohesive unit. Isn’t being able to know exactly what the other is doing a clean solution? I don’t get what the problem is.”

“The problem is he _hated_ me when we were at the Academy,” Jim snapped. “And you _married_ us.”

“So it wasn’t the bond that was the issue,” Lucifer said, slowly, “just that he didn’t like being bonded to you?”

“Well, yeah,” Jim said. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? It shouldn’t have felt so natural to have that bond, to be _married_ to Spock. What did that say about him? How he _really_ felt about Spock? “I don’t think I want to play this game anymore.”

Lucifer frowned down at the chessboard, then up at Jim, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Jim said.

“Aren’t you at all curious? Don’t you _want_ to know could be like?” Lucifer wheedled.

God help him, he did. “All I know is that Spock seems to hate me in all realities.”

“‘Seems’ being the key word here,” Lucifer said, finally--illegally--moving his knight down to the first level. “Whatever happened to not believing in no win situations?”

Jim didn’t answer, but Lucifer seemed to have decided he won anyway, since he reached over, knocked down Jim’s king, and disappeared. Jim frowned. From what he could see, _he_ had Lucifer in check. Cheating bastard.

Jim reset the board, not yet wanting to go to bed. Here, in the quiet of the sleeping ship, with the echo of a bond that would never be, Jim never felt more alone in his life.

"Captain."

Jim jumped, smacking his knee against the bottom of the table and disrupting the pieces. “Jesus Christ, Spock, do you ever sleep?”

“Frequently.” Spock lifted an eyebrow at him, curiously.

Jim braced himself, wondering what Lucifer did to his looks this time, but when he looked down at himself, everything appeared to be in order. When he looked back up, Spock was staring at the tridimensional chess set. 

"I was not aware you played."

Jim shrugged and said, “Sure.” Actually, he loved playing chess, but he didn’t want to seem overeager. “Do you wanna play a round? I promise to go easy on you.”

Spock walked over to the table, hesitated, then took the seat across from him. 

“You may have white,” Jim said charitably, if only to see Spock’s eyebrows wing up in disbelief.

“You are quite confident.”

“Aren’t I always?”

Spock ended up beating him in a quick and bloody game, but it was a close match and Jim cheerfully attributed Spock’s win to him having first-move advantage.

“We’ll just have to have a rematch,” Jim said, still cheerfully, though tentatively.

“Perhaps another time,” Spock said, standing. “It is late.”

Jim deflated, but rallied quickly and grinned. “Of course. Well, we still have a couple of weeks before we reach Altair VI,” Jim said, carefully keeping the hope from his voice. “Goodnight, Spock.”

“Goodnight, Captain.”


	4. Chapter 4

Jim made a pointed effort not to seek out Lucifer that night, heading straight to his quarters for dinner. He wasn’t blind to the concerned looks shot at him or over his head between crewmates, but he chose to ignore them all. And when Bones barged onto the bridge, demanding Jim join him for dinner and a drink, Jim had tiredly said, “Some other time,” and took himself off to his cabin.

Truthfully, he was still a bit shaken up about the bond, his reaction to it, and, well, everything about Spock. Why was he so desperate to have the perfect working relationship with his first officer? He wasn’t in so much denial that he could easily dismiss this as something ‘normal.’ So, then, what was it he _really_ wanted?

He wanted Spock to like him.

And that made him about as sorry as a twelve year old with a crush. Jim sighed and grabbed the bottom of his shirt, when he abruptly _knew_ he wasn’t alone.

Lucifer was at his desk, flipping idly through a data PADD that probably had confidential Federation documents on it. He pretended to not notice Jim for several minutes, before he looked up with surprise. “Oh, Captain. There you are. I was afraid I’d missed you.”

“Get out of my desk, Lucifer,” Jim said.

Lucifer cocked his head to the side. “It must be a captain thing,” he said, weirdly, and mostly to himself, then snapped. Jim blinked and suddenly he was seated at his desk, with the data PADD in his hands and Lucifer across from him. Lucifer had not been looking at confidential documents. Lucifer had somehow installed a card game on his PADD and was losing spectacularly at Solitaire.

“You’re really bad at games, huh?” Jim asked, sliding a handful of cards over in an attempt to salvage the game.

“I am not,” Lucifer said, petulantly.

“These types of games, at least,” Jim said, tossing the PADD to the side. “What do you want, Lucifer?”

“Now, Captain. I know you’re not going to duck out of the rest of your wishes when you still have four left, not when you still have so many questions left unanswered. So,” he leaned forward, bracing himself on Jim’s desk like a particularly aggressive salesman, “what will it be?”

Jim stared up at him for a handful of seconds, then said. “I don’t know.”

“Wrong answer, try again.” When Jim didn’t immediately respond, just looked down to frown down at the data PADD, Lucifer sighed dramatically. “Work with me here, Captain. You want Spock to _like_ you, right?”

“How did you--”

“So, how do you fix something that’s already been broken? You start from the beginning.”

Jim frowned. It wasn’t an inherently bad idea, except where all of Lucifer’s ideas were inherently bad ideas. “Well, sure--” he said, wavering.

“Great!” Lucifer said, lifting his hand to snap.

Jim’s eyes widened. “No, wait--”

“Too late,” Lucifer said, and snapped.

* * *

When Jim opened his eyes, he was in a hover car, in the driver’s seat, with his hands on the steering wheel. Interestingly, the hover car was drifting straight into oncoming traffic.

“Fuck!” Jim yelped, yanking the wheel in the opposite direction. He gripped the wheel tight to keep the car from spinning out of control, then cut off three people to pull over on the side of the road.

Jim took a deep breath in through his mouth and exhaled through his nose, then shouted, “Are you trying to kill me?”

The answer to that question was undoubtedly yes. Jim leaned forward, dropping his forehead between his hands on the steering wheel. Okay, that was it. No more wishes for Jim. Even if these were just fake realities, Jim didn’t think his heart could handle it.

The passenger door opened and slammed shut. Jim looked up in surprise and straight at the back of a head he had become very familiar with over the years. He would recognize that shiny black hair, that slope of a neck, and the shape of that pointy ear anywhere.

"Uh," Jim said.

Spock whipped around, eyes widening. "You are not--" He visibly pulled himself together and straightened. "In my haste, I mistook your vehicle for the vehicle of an acquaintance. You have my apologies." His voice was more stilted than Jim had ever heard it, hovering around overly formal, instead of the normal Vulcan dry.

"Hey, man, happens to the best of us," Jim said, smiling. Because Spock was Spock and completely incomprehensible on a good day, Jim's easy demeanor made him blink.

"Do you not know who I am?" Spock said, a hint of disbelief in his voice.

Jim did of course, he was _Spock_ , but he was also a Spock who leaped into a stranger's car and didn't immediately leap back out, so he shrugged. "No. Should I?"

"Fascinating," Spock said, so at least that was still the same. He didn't seem in a hurry to explain just who he was, twisting around again to peer out the window. "If you would resume driving, you would have my deepest gratitude."

"In a hurry?" Jim asked, but dutifully put the car into first. He chanced a glance at his rearview mirror, did a doubletake, and then said, “Holy shit.”

Behind them was a crowd of reporters that made the press after Nero look like amateurs. Flashes exploded bright in the mirrors as the photographers captured Jim's open mouthed gape of surprise. And they were rushing towards the car and getting closer by the second. Soon enough, they would be surrounded.

"I believe it would be prudent if we accelerated. Quickly," Spock said, gripping the 'oh shit' handle.

"Right!" Jim said, pulling away from the curb and cut off three more hover cars in his haste. 

“ _Carefully_ ,” Spock said, through gritted teeth.

Spock didn't relax until they were several miles away from the crowd, and even then he looked a little skeptical, like he wasn't quite sure his hasty decision to hop into a strangers car had been a good one. It wasn't at all--what was Spock _thinking_? What if it wasn’t _Jim’s_ car he hopped into?--but then again Spock was a Vulcan and could beat the crap out of Jim if he tried anything, with or without a phaser.

"So then, where to?" Jim asked as he made a left down a random small street.

"I cannot return to my current residence."

"Why not?"

Spock said nothing, but his silence was telling enough. Jim glanced at Spock and detected a hint of--embarrassment? "Ah, I see. Can't be caught slumming with the likes of me, huh?"

Spock's eyebrows lowered. "You said you did not know who I am."

"I don't, but I know your type."

“And what, exactly, is my ‘type’?” Spock asked, and for all that his voice remained monotonous, Jim would also recognize that dripping disdain anywhere.

Jim looked away from the road for long enough to slowly rake his eyes down Spock’s body, taking in the perfectly tailored outfit, the straight-backed way he held himself, not quite military-strict like from his reality, but commanding nonetheless, and even the way he looked at Jim, as if he expected his word to be treated like law, instead of being ready to defer to Jim’s judgment.

By the time Jim’s gaze made its way back up to his face, Spock's ears were faintly green. Jim grinned at him and said nothing, then turned his eyes back to the road.

“I believe I can determine your ‘type’, as well,” Spock said, after several long moments.

“Oh yeah?” Jim asked. “And what’s my ‘type’?”

“Incorrigible.”

Jim laughed.

* * *

Jim ended up taking Spock back to his apartment, if only because he had no idea where else to bring him. Thankfully, this body seemed to have retained its muscle memory, because he was able to navigate home without any issues.

Apparently, Jim hadn’t enjoyed the success in this universe. Spock looked wildly out of place, his aristocratic dignity clashing horribly with Jim’s cluttered, decrepit studio. There was a futon, a desk, a kitchenette with a kitchen set, and not much else. The sleek hover car Jim had been driving now seemed completely inappropriate. Clearly, this Jim wasn’t very good at managing his credits.

“So,” Jim said, tamping down the urge to frantically clean. “Tea?”

“That would be acceptable,” Spock said, and to his credit he sat at the kitchen set without even the slightest wrinkle to his nose. 

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” Spock said, as Jim placed the least chipped mug he owned in front of Spock.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Jim said, sitting across from him with a mug of coffee. “It’s been awhile since I had company.” It was even true, though Jim wasn’t sure how he knew that. “What was it with all those hacks chasing you, anyway?”

“I would rather not say,” Spock said.

Jim shrugged. He could understand wanting to get away from the spotlight for a little bit. “Sure.”

“Due to mitigating circumstances, my people will not be able to come for another hour. I hesitate to impose further, however--”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jim said, flapping a hand. He wondered what the ‘mitigating circumstances’ were, but didn’t pry.

Spock observed him curiously, sipping his tea, then looking down at it in surprise.

“You like that?” Jim said, grinning. His Spock was a fan of spice tea, too.

“I find the flavor acceptable,” Spock said, taking another sip before setting the mug down. “You have been exceedingly generous. What is your name?”

“Jim,” Jim said, but didn’t give his full name even when Spock looked at him expectantly. He wasn’t sure why, but something in him rebelled ferociously at the very idea.

“I thank you, Jim, for your assistance,” Spock said, eyes intent.

Now it was Jim’s turn to blush faintly. “Hey, seriously. Don’t worry about it.” He cleared his throat and stood, gathering up his mug to bring to the sink, even though he still had half a cup of coffee left. He turned around to lean against the counter, smiling at Spock. “Well, since we have an hour--fancy a game of chess?”

* * *

Talking to this Spock was surprisingly easy, considering Jim didn’t have a background to fall back on and Spock was even more tightlipped about himself than the Spock Jim knew. They played three games of chess and stuck to safe topics, ranging from the rights of artificial life forms to the ethics behind genome editing. It was one of the most intellectually stimulating conversations Jim had in years, and Jim found himself wishing Spock could stay longer than the hour.

He liked to think Spock felt the same, but after exactly one hour passed, Spock pulled a ridiculously high tech personal comm from his pocket. He skimmed over a message, before locking his comm again and standing. Jim stood as well, smiling wryly.

“Your ride here?”

“Yes,” Spock said, hesitantly. “Jim, I find that I have greatly enjoyed spending time with you.”

Jim smiled. “Me too.”

“Although we only had an hour together, it has been--refreshing. Thank you.”

“Of course, any time,” Jim said, starting to feel a bit confused by Spock’s effusive (for him) thanks. It all felt oddly final. “I mean, you know where I live. You’re welcome to come back if you ever feel like you need to get away.”

Spock’s eyes softened and Jim was suddenly certain that this would be the last time Jim saw this Spock. Then Spock was leaning forward, tenderly cupping Jim’s cheeks, and--and _kissing him_.

Spock was _kissing him_.

And then Spock was gone, leaving Jim to stand, slack jawed, in the middle of his crummy apartment. 

Did that just--had Spock just--

Jim shook off his surprise and flung himself out the door and down the hall to the exit, but it was too late. By the time Jim burst through the exit, Spock was already vanishing into the backseat of an unmarked black hover car. Jim watched the car disappear around the corner, mind totally blank, then turned around and trudged back inside.

He stood in the middle of his apartment for a long time, not thinking of anything beyond _Spock kissed me_ and _why the fuck didn’t I kiss back?_

His computer pinged. 

Did _his_ Spock like guys? The only relationship Spock had been in that Jim was aware of was with Uhura, who was most definitely not a guy. And _Spock_ had initiated the kiss, something Jim had never seen him do with Uhura--

His computer pinged again, a little more insistently. 

Jim shook himself off, turning to his computer. “Computer.”

“ _There are twenty-three new articles for a trend you follow_ ,” it said, in a pleasant, female voice. Jim blinked. That was a surprising number of articles. In his universe, there were usually two or three new articles per trend a day, unless something big happened.

“Open the articles,” Jim said.

Window after window opened on his screen and Jim’s eyes widened.

_**Lord Spock, direct descendant of Emperor Surak and next in line as Emperor of Vulcan, was witnessed getting into the hover car of an unknown man...** _

_**TROUBLE IN PARADISE? While Lord Spock was caught consorting with a mystery man, his betrothed, Lady T'Pring, was witnessed dining with Sir Stonn…** _

Article after article with similar headlines opened on his screen. Apparently, it was just any Spock who kissed Jim, but a _Lord_ Spock. Jim sank back in his chair, unsure whether to be amused or horrified.

Then the headlines started to change and Jim groaned, closing his eyes. Horrified. Definitely horrified. He tapped the screen to pull one of the articles to the front.

_**LORD SPOCK FRATERNIZING WITH AN ANARCHIST? MYSTERY MAN IDENTIFIED** _

_Gary Mitchell, an old friend of the blond, blue eyed mystery man seen with Lord Spock on Tuesday afternoon, has identified him as one James T. Kirk._

_Kirk is best known for his inflammatory publications against the Vulcan monarchy…_

Jim closed the article quickly, as if removing it from his screen would eliminate it from reality. He was an _anarchist_? And now, not just any anarchist, but an anarchist _consorting with an emperor_.

“Fucking Lucifer,” Jim muttered, then said, “Computer, find all publications by James T. Kirk.”

“ _Searching…I found twenty articles by James T. Kirk._ ”

Moments later, page after page filled Jim’s screen, all with equally horrifying titles.

_**Ten Reasons to Oppose the Monarchy** _

_**Arguments for Abolishing this Anti-Democratic Dynasty** _

_**Monarchy vs. Democracy: Why it’s time to cut royalty from politics** _

“Oh my god,” Jim said, weakly. 

There was absolutely no way Spock didn’t already know about Jim’s little side hobby as an anarchist. He clicked on the last article and skimmed it quickly. Okay, so he wasn't exactly an _anarchist_ , more of an anti-monarchist. His arguments were at least well-reasoned and not filled with frothing-at-the-mouth vitriol, but at its heart still against hereditary privilege, and therefore Spock, as a whole. The very article he was reading referred to Vulcan as an ‘anti-progressive feudal society’ and questioned why Earth had allowed itself to be pulled back into the monarchy it had fought so hard to break up with in the 21st century, after Vulcan had first conquered Earth. At least he had softened the blow by acknowledging Vulcan’s advancements in technology, though he didn’t think Spock would be that impressed.

Jim rubbed his eyes. This is what he fucking got for mentioning something about ‘Vulcan overlords.’ Lucifer probably thought he was so hilarious.

His computer pinged again, this time with a new message. He opened it. The letter was coldly impersonal and detached, expressing gratitude for his assistance and an apology for any trouble Spock may have caused, and was sent from an address that probably went through a whole army of assistants and advisors before it finally reached Spock, if it ever did. There was something all very final about the missive, like if Jim tried to respond, Spock would print out the letter on real paper just so he could burn it.

So there would be no convincing Spock it would be a good idea to give this kissing thing another go. Jim sighed and gave up, saying, “Computer, turn off.”

That was when someone knocked on the door.

For one crazy moment, Jim thought maybe Spock had returned, but then the reporter shouted through the door, “James Kirk, is it true you are in an illicit affair with Lord Spock, despite being a well-known anarchist?”

Jim immediately yanked the red comm out of his pocket. There was no way in hell he was sticking around for this bullshit. He got more than enough of that for two lifetimes, after Nero _and_ Khan.

“Kirk, what do you have to say about Lord Spock’s sexuality?”

“Get me out of here!” Jim yelped into the comm, just as the knocking redoubled and was accompanied by more shouting voices.

* * *

“Vulcan overlords, Lucifer, _really_?” Jim demanded before he even finished materializing in front of Lucifer in the mess. Then he did a doubletake, appalled by the number of chocolate sundaes on the table.

“I had a feeling you might be in a bad mood,” Lucifer said. “I was once informed chocolate sundaes have a beneficial psychological impact on humans.”

“But why so many of them?”

“I had a feeling you would be in a _really_ bad mood.”

Jim sighed and took one of the sundaes, because he had a point. “I like how you made me an anti-monarchist,” Jim said, licking the spoon. “Nice touch. Very creative.”

“Why, thank you,” Lucifer said, clearly touched. “So you liked the wish?”

“No,” Jim said.

“Surely there were some parts you enjoyed,” Lucifer said, waggling his eyebrows.

“No,” Jim said. “And that’s creepy, stop it.”

“Fine,” Lucifer said, disappointed. Jim rolled his eyes and polished off the rest of the sundae in three bites, then stood up.

“You’re not going to finish the sundaes?” Lucifer asked.

“The average human can only eat one sundae per sitting,” Jim said.

“Oh,” Lucifer said, eyeing the sundaes as if they had personally betrayed him. “Tomorrow, then.”

And then he disappeared before Jim could agree or disagree, leaving behind ten chocolate sundaes. Jim sighed and cleaned them up, then made his way back towards his quarters.

A hand grabbed him by the arm halfway down the hall and yanked him into the empty briefing room. Jim fought back briefly, but immediately relaxed when he recognized Spock’s familiar stern expression.

Except the last time Jim had seen a Spock, Spock was kissing him, and Jim very abruptly went red.

“Uh, hi Spock,” Jim said, feeling incredibly embarrassed, which was just silly since a) he wasn’t _actually_ a twelve-year-old with a crush and b) this wasn’t even the Spock who had kissed him.

“Forgive me, Captain,” Spock said, immediately releasing Jim’s arm. “I did not think it would be prudent for you to be seen by anyone in your current state.”

Jim’s mouth flattened. He looked down. Not entirely surprisingly, his shirt was rucked up and the top of his pants were unbuttoned. He could just picture how the rest of him looked, having seen himself in the mirror after a romp enough times to know just what his hair was doing at the moment.

“I guarantee this is not what it looks like,” Jim said, buttoning himself up and straightening his shirt.

Spock’s expression was flat. This Spock obviously didn’t want to kiss _any_ Jim. “While it is not exactly against regulations, it is inadvisable to conduct liaisons with those so far below you in rank--”

“Seriously, Spock, I haven’t--I wouldn’t--”

Spock’s gaze flicked down, taking in Jim’s everything, before fixing back on his face. In the harsh light of the room, Spock’s eyes looked nearly black. “It is not my place to criticize your diversions, but a captain must, at all times, be a symbol of authority--”

Jim sighed explosively. He was going to kill Lucifer. What an shining example of how to take one step forward and two steps back. He held up a hand to stem any further lectures, knowing that anything he said wouldn’t persuade Spock otherwise when he had such ample evidence standing in front of him.

“Noted,” Jim said, resigned. “I’m going to bed.”

“Captain--” Spock said, voice low and nearly a growl.

“ _Goodnight_ , Commander,” Jim said, and left the briefing room before Spock could reply.


	5. Chapter 5

“I’ve been thinking,” Jim said, strolling up to the strange, purring pink flower of Sulu’s in the botanical garden. Lucifer had on a pair of old fashioned science goggles that magnified his eyes to comical proportions and was examining a tomato at a lab table.

“Yes?” Lucifer asked, distracted.

Jim poked the pink flower. It poked back. Jim stepped away from the flower, because even he could only take so much weird. The vine he ended up next to pat his arm soothingly, which really wasn’t that much better.

“Well,” he said, trying to extricate his arm from the vine, which was starting to get a little too friendly. “I was just wondering what it might be like if...” He trailed off, uncertainly.

That got Lucifer’s attention. He set the tomato down and turned his comically magnified eyes to Jim, curiously, lifting an eyebrow. “Yes? ‘You were wondering if...’?” he demanded when Jim didn’t say anything. “That’s one thing I never understood about you humans. What’s the point of circumlocution? Just make your wish and I’ll make it happen.”

“That,” Jim said, pointing one vine covered arm at Lucifer, “that is exactly why I’m ‘circumlocuting’. I’m worried about what you’re going to ‘make happen’.”

“I’m wounded,” Lucifer said, then held out both of his hands as if to say, ‘Well? Hit me with it.’

He might as well get it over with. When was he ever going to get a chance to have all of his wishes (kind of) granted? He said, “I was wondering what it would be like to--be in a rlshwisck.” 

Lucifer rubbed into one ear with his pinky. “Excuse me?”

“I said,” Jim said, slowing himself down, “I was wondering what it would be like to be in a relationship with Spock.”

Lucifer’s eyes lit up, which was extremely unnerving behind his magnifying goggles. “Well, well.”

“Not like, a full relationship. Just--sort of,” Jim said, hastily. “I was just curious if it was even possible. It’s just that--in the last wish, he kissed me.”

“Spare me the details,” Lucifer said, wincing.

“Don’t be a dick,” Jim said, glaring. “Well? Is it possible or not?” Jim thought it was a big fat ‘NOT,’ but there was no harm in checking, right? Unless Spock found out. Then there would probably be a great deal of harm.

There was a simple enough solution to that. Spock could _never_ find out. Not that Jim was about to spill all these sordid wishes to anybody; no one needed to know just how pathetic he really was, thank you.

“Of course it’s possible,” Lucifer said, lifting a hand. “One ‘sort of’ relationship coming up.”

“Sort of rela--hold on,” Jim said, eyes widening at the wording.

Lucifer snapped.

* * *

Jim woke up sprawled across cool silk sheets. He felt--well, he felt thoroughly fucked, actually, stretched out in a way he hadn't been for several years now, since the last time he’d let another man bend him over. And if the way his bones were still buzzing meant anything, he had been fucked _really well_. He stretched his arms over his head, grabbing the headboard and cracking a kink out of his back, and then he shot up into a sitting position, all of the blood rushing to his face at once.

This had the unfortunate effect of waking the other occupant of the bed. Spock also shot into a sitting position, equally shocked, and when he made eye contact with Jim, he sprang out of the bed, taking all the sheets with him. Jim, who had been in the process of scrambling backwards, got tangled up in the sheets and fell off his side of the bed, landing hard on his already tender behind.

“Ow,” he said to the ceiling, wide eyed.

Fuck.

He and Spock-- Spock was the one who--

“We did not,” Spock said, which was weirdly imprecise for him, and also _blatantly_ untrue.

“My ass says otherwise,” Jim said, grimly.

“Perhaps it was my time,” Spock said, incomprehensibly and mostly to himself. It sounded like he was trying to find a reason, _any_ reason besides the obvious, for why he would be in a place like this with a guy like Jim. “No, that is impossible.”

“These things just happen sometimes,” Jim said, reassuringly.

“They do not.”

“No, I suppose they don’t. At least, not to Vulcans.”

Jim didn’t need to see Spock to know how hard he flinched at that. He sat up anyway, resting his arms on the side of the bed. Spock was standing by the window, holding a sheet wrapped around his waist with one hand, the early morning sunlight highlighting his hair a deep brown. He looked--well, he looked like he was freaking out, which meant that his eyes were slightly wider and his jaw slightly tighter.

Jim was momentarily, breathtakingly relieved that Lucifer had not sent him into this wish while he was _having sex with Spock_ , while simultaneously momentarily, breathtakingly disappointed for the same exact reason. 

"This was a mistake."

Jim dropped back onto the carpet, arms splayed. "Of course it was.”.

"You are aware that I cannot--"

"Yeah, yeah," Jim said, lifting a hand to wave dismissively over the side of the bed. _This_ was Lucifer’s idea of a relationship? Jim didn’t know why he was even surprised. Then again, it was his dumb fault for being imprecise. He knew better by now. He pushed himself to his feet, not bothering with a sheet. If Spock wanted to pretend like nothing happened between them, he could very well deal with Jim’s naked ass.

They were in some ridiculously over-priced hotel room dominated by a king-sized bed and the shower-plus-hot tub separated from the room by a giant pane of glass. Jim stalked into the bathroom, which was roughly half the size of the entire room, complete with a his and hers sink and an enormous mirror. He chugged half a glass of water in one gulp, examining himself curiously in the mirror.

He was pretty roughed up, blood crusted around both his nostrils and a rainbow of scrapes and bruises all over his face and chest. What the hell had happened last night? He didn’t _think_ Spock was into rough sex--and anyway, these were more like bruises from being held down and punched, and not like bruises from just being held down. Jim tilted his face to better admire the mark under his jaw. Now _that_ one didn’t look like it came from a fist.

Spock was still standing by the window when Jim entered the room again, looking like he was doing a risk-benefit analysis of staying in the hotel versus bolting into public in nothing but a sheet. 

“So,” Jim said, leaning against the glass pane. Spock kept his eyes firmly above the neck. “What exactly happened?”

“You were not so inebriated that you wouldn’t be able to recall last night’s events,” Spock said, almost accusingly.

"We can go again to jog my memory," Jim said, waggling his eyebrows.

"No!"

Jim snorted at his vehemence and said, "Come on, it wasn't that bad, was it?"

"I--" Spock was actually visibly flustered. Jim took pity on him, waving a hand dismissively.

“Humor me and just give me a quick run down. I’m tired and have a killer headache.” Both were at least true, though he was pretty sure the headache came from being punched in the head several times and not because of the alcohol.

Spock’s forearm flexed distractingly as he gripped the sheet tighter. Jim admired the view for a minute, pressing the rim, of his glass to his lips. Pre-reform muscles or no, _damn_. No wonder why Uhura was all up on that.

“I had mistakenly entered a drinking establishment last night in an attempt to locate adequate sustenance. As I was inquiring about their cuisine, you--” Spock very nearly frowned as he attempted to puzzle through the human intricacies he could still barely comprehend, “--made an advance of a sexual nature,” he decided, then added in case Jim needed clarification, which he _hadn’t_ , “on me.”

“Oh,” Jim said, eyes widening. He hadn’t tried to pick up Uhura? This was wildly different from the original version, and yet apparently much more successful. Which Jim never would have imagined being the case, not in a hundred million years. “And you went for it?”

“I did not,” Spock said.

Jim looked around the room pointedly, then down at himself. When he looked back up at Spock, Spock snapped his own eyes back up from the bruise on Jim's neck. To his credit, he didn’t even blush.

"You persisted your flirtations until one of the patrons of the bar took exception to--me. My recalcitrance." He said this like it was completely unsurprising. "Instead of ignoring the individual as I requested, you foolishly struck him across the face."

"Foolish?" Jim huffed, folding his arms. "That sounds pretty heroic to me."

“Yes,” Spock said, though he sounded skeptical. “Unfortunately, the man was accompanied by several of his acquaintances. Although you fought surprisingly well despite your level of intoxication,” and Jim beamed at the praise, despite Spock’s continued and unwarranted skepticism, “you were quickly overwhelmed.”

“And then?” Jim asked, curious. He knew how it ended in his world, but he had a feeling Pike hadn’t stepped in at this point. He _probably_ wouldn’t have woken up in Spock’s bed if that were the case.

“Starfleet Officers are permitted to employ due force if a civilian is a threat,” Spock said, almost defensively.

“So you knocked them out,” Jim said, grinning.

“I rendered them unconscious by projecting a small amount of telephathic force into the nerve clusters at the juncture of their necks,” Spock said.

Jim’s grin widened. “You nerve pinched them.”

“Essentially,” Spock said, with the smallest of sighs at how imprecise humans were.

“Okay, that makes sense,” Jim said, finishing his glass of water in one gulp. He was amazed at how casually he and Spock could carry a conversation without their clothes on, even in a world where they had just met and had already had a tumble together. “But I still don’t understand how we ended up from there to here.”

“You were--impressed by my talent,” Spock said, and there was the blush, just a faint green tinge over his cheekbones. “Enthusiastically impressed.”

“I kissed you?” Jim said, and he really shouldn’t be as surprised as he was. He _knew_ himself, and that was exactly something he would have done. He’d probably thought, what the hell, I’ve already got the shit beat out of me. Might as well just go for it. He’d probably thought he’d be nerve pinched like Cupcake, assuming it was Cupcake who had been harassing them.

He probably _hadn’t_ thought that Spock would take him back to his hotel room and screw him silly, but he might have hoped.

“Indeed.”

“And you--enjoyed it?”

“Vulcans do not feel joy,” Spock said, but he dropped his eyes and Jim knew he was lying, if not to Jim, than to himself.

 _Fascinating_.

“Right,” Jim said, striding over to the side of the bed to dig through the hastily discarded clothing. He pulled on the jeans he found without bothering with the underwear and was struck, suddenly, at how goddamn surreal it all was. Jim had his fair share of morning afters, and sometimes they were awkward, or tense, or downright weird, but he’d never had a morning after with his first officer who just happened to be a Vulcan. And, if he was understanding the situation right, they were still in Iowa and Jim wasn’t even a member of Starfleet yet, let alone a captain.

"So, what now?" Jim asked. 

Spock's eyes flicked to the pile of clothing, like he would dearly like to get dressed but wasn’t willing to give up his position by the potential escape route. But because Spock was Spock, he straightened and said, "You may leave."

Jim's eyebrows flew up. "Excuse me?"

"I have told you how it has transpired that we have come together--like this. There is no reason to continue our acquaintanceship.” 

“Ouch,” Jim said, grinning to hide the fact that he actually was stung. “Somehow, I never thought that Vulcans did casual flings.”

“We do not,” Spock said, finally giving in to snatch his pants from the ground. He didn’t put them on right away, as if he were too modest to drop sheet in front of Jim. Which was hilarious, considering--whatever happened last night. “Although it is rare, Vulcans have been known to have--lapses in judgement.”

So now Jim was a lapse in judgement. His grin dropped. “Fine,” he said, viciously yanking on a shirt without bothering to check whose it was. He was _not_ upset about being booted out after a night he didn’t even remember.

“Kirk,” Spock said. Jim looked up from where he was tying his shoe, hopeful. “That is my shirt.”

Jim scowled, then reached down, snatched up the other shirt, and stormed out of the hotel room.

Screw Spock, anyway.

* * *

It was 0700 hours. Jim didn’t bother going home, just hijacked the first motorcycle he came across and drove straight to the Riverside Shipyard. He didn’t stop until he reached the spot he’d met Pike that morning so long ago, except Pike wasn’t there yet, so he had to wait around for fifteen minutes, anyway.

“Nice ride,” one of the crewmen said.

Jim knew his line, but he frowned and said, “Thanks, it’s not mine.” He hopped off the bike and tweaked a wire to turn it off. “Do me a favor and find the original owner, will you? Thanks.”

He strode passed the workman, ignoring how he balked at the bike and then hurried away as if they never had the conversation in the first place. Pike had just strode up to the shuttle and was watching him curiously, with a faint look of recognition in his eye, and for gut-wrenching moment Jim was horribly sad. But he steeled himself, stopped in front of Pike, and said, “I’d like to enroll.”

“Well, son, there are certain protocols--”

“I’m James T. Kirk,” Jim said. He hated throwing his name around like that, especially before it meant something more than just ‘George Kirk’s boy,’ but what the hell. Pike had manipulated him in one universe. Jim didn’t feel too bad about turning the tables. “My old man was George Kirk before he exploded himself to save eight hundred people. Check my aptitude tests. I’m a bored genius who can, and will, do better than that.”

Pike narrowed his eyes. “Bold statement, kid.”

Jim shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Pull up my files.”

Pike made him wait outside the shuttle for ten minutes longer than necessary, probably out of spite. When he came back out again, his expression was thoughtful, and Jim grinned.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Pike said.

“Good man,” Jim said, clapping Pike on the shoulder and jogging up the stairs and into the shuttle. 

He made sure to actually duck under the low clearance bar this time around, located the scruffiest looking doctor he could find, strapped himself in, then pulled the red communicator out of his pocket. Bones--who wasn’t Bones yet, but still just McCoy, lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Trust me,” Jim said, grinning lopsidedly, “this will not be the weirdest thing you see me do.” 

Then he lifted the comm to his mouth and said, “Lucifer, get me out of here.”

* * *

“Why did you do that?” Lucifer said, when Jim materialized in the middle of the glass panes on the observation deck. Lucifer was sitting in the same gray chair where they first met, but he was leaning forward like a curious jury member. “If you were just going to end the wish anyway, why did you bother enrolling in Starfleet?”

Jim shrugged, sitting crosslegged on the glass. “Even in your fake reality, I can’t stand the idea of being stuck in Iowa. I wanted to make sure I caught the shuttle.”

Lucifer considered him, eyes unfathomable. "What makes you think I am creating these realities?"

"What?" Jim said, slowly.

"I may be powerful, but even I cannot create universes." Lucifer shrugged. “I just pick the ones I deem suitable and--temporarily appropriate the bodies of other Jim Kirk’s for your use.

“What, really? So these Kirks, they’re like, unconscious or something?”

“No, more like--muted. Or rather, sharing space with you,” Lucifer said. “They’re still there, which is why you know and say things that are true to the universe.”

"You mean to tell me there's a poor slob out there with my name who can't keep his mouth shut for longer than two seconds?"

"Yep," Lucifer said, popping the p.

"And there's another Jim Kirk who just crash landed on Vulcan?"

"Yep."

"And he's going to be punished for something I did?" Jim demanded, feeling like the worst sort of person.

"No, he would have definitely said that anyway," Lucifer said. "Remember, Captain, these aren't different people. They're you. What you do, they were already going to do, with the same repercussions. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Give or take." Lucifer shrugged. “Obviously I can’t control _everything_.”

“Obviously,” Jim repeated, weakly. He staggered back up to his feet when something else occurred to him and he nearly had to sit down again. “Did you--did you manipulate the events in each universe in order to make my wish?”

“No,” Lucifer said, eyes gleaming. “That Jim Kirk really did have sex with that Spock.”

For a moment, Jim was blindingly jealous of the Jim Kirk in the universe he just left. At least _one_ Kirk got to hit that. Or be hit by that. He sighed and scrubbed his face with both hands, and said, “I’m going to bed.”

“See you tomorrow,” Lucifer said.

“No!” Jim said, but Lucifer was, of course, gone.

Jim stumbled out of the observation deck and to the lift that would take him back to his quarters, still reeling. He had stupidly assumed that Lucifer was showing him what _could_ have been, a la Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, not what actually _was_ , albeit in completely different universes. It was unnerving, but Jim couldn’t help but to be intensely curious about what happened _after_ he left the wishes. Did they really dissolve the bond? Did the anti-monarchist ever hook up with the lonely emperor? Did the Spock from pre-Reform Vulcan finally give in and just kill Jim?

Did any Jim get to stay with any Spock?

Jim made it all the way back to his rooms without being stopped, which unsettled him for some reason. He stood in front of the door, trying to figure out what it was about his uninterrupted walk was bothering him so much, before it hit him and he viciously punched in the code to his quarters.

For the first night this whole week, Jim didn’t run into Spock.

It was a shame, really. Spock would have found the particular shade of red Lucifer made Jim’s hair _fascinating_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See the end notes for a mild warning.

Thankfully, the red had faded from his hair that morning, or else Alpha shift would have been more awkward than it already was. Jim didn't let his own personal crises impact the quality of his work, but not only was his own somber attitude having a dampening effect on the rest of the crew’s mood, but _Spock_ was pulling the whole super Vulcan act and terrifying anyone who dared to say more than two words to him. By the time shift ended, everyone--Jim included--practically sprinted from their stations to escape the stifling atmosphere.

There was no place for him to hide. Lucifer wouldn’t hesitate to appear straight in Jim’s quarters, like a particularly resilient cockroach. Maybe he could lock himself in the bathroom. Or a closet.

Jim considered his options, came to a quick decision, then stormed to the sickbay and into Bones’ office. “Is anyone dying?”

Bones stood up, alarmed. “Not that I know of?”

“Is there a plague?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Does anyone have any life-threatening injuries?”

“That’s the same as your first question,” Bones said, beginning to scowl. “So: no.”

Jim stalked over to the glass cabinet where Bones kept his finest Andorian Ale and grabbed a bottle. “Good. We’re drinking.”

“Right now?”

“All night.”

Bones stared at him for a full minute, then opened the bottom drawer of his desk to silently pull out two glasses. He looked like he wanted to argue, but was willing to play along for the time being, thank god. Jim dropped down in the chair across from his desk and held out the bottle expectantly.

“Jim,” Bones said, two hours later and from somewhere under his desk. “Jimmy. Are you alright? M’worried about you.”

“Hm,” Jim said, which wasn’t really a response. He frowned into his glass, as if it could provide him with a good answer. He didn’t think he was ‘alright’ in the strictest sense of the word--being this hung up on your first officer couldn’t be healthy for anyone, let alone a captain, but he wasn’t about to tell that to _Bones_.

"It's just that--you don't normally want to drink like this. Not when you're on Alpha shift the next morning."

"Hm," Jim said again.

Bones pushed himself out from under his desk. His hair was sticking up all over the place in ridiculous tufts. Jim grinned at him, sloppily fond, and Bones said, “We’re all worried about you. Even that--even that goblin.”

“You’re wrong,” Jim said, brandishing his glass like a weapon.

“I’m not. He’s worried about you. The goblin, I mean. I’m worried too.”

“No,” Jim said, then pushed himself to his feet before he could get maudlin. “I’m going to bed.”

“Jim--”

“‘night, Bones.”

Bones sighed and waved the bottle at him, then frowned at it, blearily. He tried capping it, missed the first two times, then gave up and just clunked it down on the floor and crawled back under his desk for some shut eye. He was really going to murder Jim dead the next morning.

Jim stumbled out of Bones' office. He really shouldn’t have drank so much Andorian Ale, but he was--alright, he was _sad_. Sad that, apparently, no matter what universe he was in, Jim Kirk just couldn’t seem to get it right. Sad that he was getting it so wrong in his own universe he had to _wish_ for it to be right, and he couldn’t even get _that_ right.

Jim stopped abruptly next to one of the biobeds, looking down at it and scowling. Lucifer was sprawled across the the bed, playing with an old fashioned stethoscope.

"There you are!" Lucifer said, brightly. "I was worried I'd missed you."

"Go away," Jim groaned.

"Now don't be like that! You know what they say: Hope springs eternal."

"No idioms, I get enough of those from Bones. What does that even mean, anyway? How can eternity be sprung? And how does hope spring anything at all?"

"Ah, I see you're drunk," Lucifer said, delighted.

"So?" Jim asked, belligerently.

Lucifer say up and swung his legs over the side of the biobed. " _So,_ what's your wish?"

"I don't have any wishes."

"Oh, not this again," Lucifer said, heaving a breath. "I refuse to believe there's absolutely nothing you want."

"What I want is to go to bed and forget this ever happened," Jim grumbled.

"You're telling me you're not curious about how your relationship with your precious first officer might pan out?"

"What relationship?" Jim demanded, voice still slurred. "There's nothing between me and Spock in this universe, let alone in any _other_ universe.”

"Now _that_ ," Lucifer said, brandishing his stethoscope at Jim, "is blatantly untrue."

"You're saying there's a Spock out there who wants a Jim like me?"

"Yep."

" _Really_ wants me?"

"Yep."

"Fine," Jim said, resigned. "Show it to me."

"You won't regret this," Lucifer said, earnestly, and snapped his fingers.

* * *

Going from 'staggering drunk' to just 'staggering' was a highly unpleasant experience, especially when it happened in a completely different atmosphere. Jim stumbled back several steps, tripping over something and nearly toppling backwards. Some graceful flailing kept him upright, but it was a close enough call that Spock, who was having an apparently civil conversation with Dr. Marcus (Jim supposed anything was possible in different universes), started towards him. Jim waved him off, rubbing at his temples. Christ, Lucifer was a bastard.

The planet they were on was very--vibrant, almost like an overexposed picture. Around them, a field of flowers stretched for as far as the eye could see, the swaying rainbow of colors broken up only by a smattering of science officers and Sulu, who was gleefully digging out a plant with purple bell-shaped flowers that were opening and closing like little mouths. Creepy.

“Captain,” Spock said, clearly having chosen to misunderstand Jim’s waving him off. “Are you injured?”

“No, just tripped over this--” he looked down, then sighed at himself, “--flower.”

“It is very red,” Spock said, dubiously, examining the foot tall, vibrantly red flower that resembled a sunflower on steroids. “I am unsure how you could have missed it.”

“I had stuff on my mind. Anyway, tell me how this, ah, planetary survey is going,” Jim said, taking a shot in the dark. There were certainly enough science officers loitering around for one.

Spock straightened, his expression taking on its usual sciency expression, and Jim breathed an internal sigh of relief. If he had guessed wrong, Spock would have been onto him in a second.

“Dr. Marcus and I were just discussing the process of fertilization and reproduction of the flowers. As there appears to be a dearth of external organisms to assist in pollination, we can assume that, although unusual for such a large variety of flowers, they are abiotic, like the Terran conifer.”

“Meaning, what, they depend on the wind to spread their pollen?”

Spock’s lips twitched, as if he were tempted to smile. “As you say.”

“Huh,” Jim said, turning to the flower he had tripped on. The flower turned to face him.

That was--different. They’d come across many mobile flora on their journeys--even sentient ones--but it was still pretty damn strange to Jim for a plant to respond to him like that. He bet Sulu would get a kick out of this.

“Hey, Spock, maybe they pollinate by--”

Jim felt as if he was hit on the side by a car. He was actually knocked off his feet, landing hard on his side and crushing a couple more flowers, which squealed in protest. He scrambled back to his feet, twisting around. “What the hell, Spock--”

Then Jim was moving, sprinting back to Spock as the flower Jim had tripped over shot a cloud of green pollen directly into Spock’s face. He sucked in a breath of clean air, then reached into the cloud and yanked Spock out of it, roughly pulling him several meters away.

“Spock? Spock! Are you okay?”

Spock blinked several times, trying to clear the pollen from his eyes. He pulled out a handkerchief from his front pocket to wipe away the dust, only to have Jim snatch it away from him to carefully clean his face. Spock went very still. Jim had enough time to notice that Spock’s eyelashes dusted green before he abruptly realized that the usual commotion that happened after an attack had died away into stunned silence.

Jim looked over Spock’s shoulder. The science officers, including Carol, stared back at him knowingly. Jim resumed cleaning Spock’s face, but this time with brutal efficiency that wasn’t tender _at all_.

“Thank you, Captain, but I would prefer to keep my nose intact,” Spock said, plucking the handkerchief out of Jim’s hand.

“Are you okay?”

Spock considered, probably taking stock of all of his internal functions. “I am well.”

“Alright, everyone out,” Jim said, pulling out his (non-red) comm. “Beam us all up and have a medical team on standby. Spock has inhaled an unknown organic substance. We have a sample,” he said, then added. “This planet is clearly not habitable for colonization.”

“I thought we were doing a geological survey,” Jim heard one of the science officers say, just before he was beamed up.

* * *

"Heartbeat: 210 beats per minute; blood pressure: nonexistent. Everything looks normal. Normal for green-blooded hobgoblins, that is," McCoy said, frowning up at the panel above Spock’s bed.

“So he’s fine then,” Jim said, exhaling with relief.

The scanner beeped. Jim and Bones looked up at it.

"Your adrenaline level just spiked," McCoy said, accusingly. "Something got you worked up, Spock?”

Spock seemed to concentrate for a moment before he said, “I have not yet meditated today.”

"Uh huh," McCoy said. "Tell you what Spock, why don't you come in for a follow up tomorrow morning, okay?"

The monitor beeped again. "I do not believe that would be a worthwhile use of my time."

“That wasn’t an invitation, Spock,” Jim interjected, before the two could really get into it. Spock looked like he was one bad metaphor away from strangling Bones.

The machine didn't beep this time. Spock looked like he was putting a personal effort into making sure it wouldn't. "Very well. May I leave now, or do you require more of your--tests?"

“You’re free to go.”

Jim and Bones watched as Spock stood from the bed in one fluid moment and stalked out the door. He moved like--well, he moved a little like the Spock from pre-Reform Vulcan, with the graceful stride of a warrior.

“I don’t like this,” Bones said.

“You don’t like anything,” Jim agreed, then jogged after Spock, despite the protests Bones called after him.

Spock had already made it halfway down the hall, but stopped when Jim called, “Spock! Hey, wait a minute.”

“Yes, Captain?” Spock said, voice tightly controlled.

Jim scratched the back of his neck. “Hey, look. Not that I think you should have done that _at all_ , because I can step out of the way from some pollen, you know, but--thank you. For pushing me out of the way. Just--please don’t risk yourself again like that, okay?”

Spock’s eyebrows lowered until his eyes were almost completely shadowed. “I do not need your gratitude,” he snarled.

“Oh,” Jim said, taking a step back as if Spock had struck him. He looked to the side, then back up at Spock’s face. “Spock?”

“If you desisted in recklessly putting your life in danger, I would not need risk my own life to save you.”

“That’s not fair,” Jim protested. “How was I supposed to know the flower would attack me? It was a _flower_.”

“It was unnecessary for you to be planetside to begin with,” Spock snarled. “The captain does not need to--and should _not_ \--join every landing party, and yet you persist in doing so.”

“Right,” Jim said, deflating. This old argument again. He looked up into Spock’s unforgiving black eyes one last time, then turned around and walked in the opposite direction. There was another lift down a couple of halls he would take, much further away than the one Spock was heading towards. There was no way Jim was about to step foot into a lift with this Spock right now, not when he was practically boiling over with seething distaste.

Man. Lucifer usually at least got it in the same ballpark with his wishes, but he had really struck out on this one. This Spock _hated_ him.

* * *

Jim went back to his quarters and pulled out his red comm, flipping it open, only to close it again. The wish felt oddly unfinished. It wasn’t like Lucifer to drop him in a universe completely _opposite_ to what Jim had wished for. Maybe he should wait it out a bit, see what this universe threw at him.

Someone buzzed at the door and Jim pocketed his comm, shouting, “Come!”

He wasn’t _that_ surprised that it was Spock who stalked in, though he did leap to his feet. Spock looked--Spock looked like a _predator_ , prowling to Jim until he was practically in Jim’s personal bubble.

“Captain, I would like to apologize,” Spock said, and voice low and rough. His eyes were--intent. A shiver went down Jim’s spine.

“It’s--ah, it’s no problem,” Jim said, licking his suddenly dry lips. Spock’s eyes dipped down to track the movement. He stepped forward, lips parting.

“I should not have addressed you like so,” Spock said, gaze sliding slowly up Jim’s face.

“Hey, it’s fine, real--”

Jim was cut off when Spock decided it would be a good time to surge forward and crush his lips against Jim’s, taking advantage of Jim’s open mouth and sliding his tongue against Jim’s in a slow, hot caress. Jim actually felt his knees go weak, like he was some sort of goddamn dime-store novel heroine, and Spock gripped both his shoulders to hold him up, pressing his hard body against Jim’s and--

“Woah, woah, wait!” Jim said, pulling away. He would have stumbled a few steps back, but Spock had a pretty strong grip on him. “Spock, what the hell is going on?”

Spock frowned, as if he thought it was perfectly obvious. “I am attempting to engage you in coitus,” he said, then dipped back down to kiss Jim again.

“Wait!” Jim said, drawing further back. Spikes in adrenaline--faceful of unknown organic substance-- “You don’t want to have sex with me, the pollen wants to have sex with me!”

Spock didn’t even bother to respond to that frankly ridiculous statement verbally, just yanked Jim forward again, sliding his lips against Jim’s in the filthiest way Spock _shouldn’t_ know how to do, and Jim was going to _come in his fucking pants_ if Spock didn’t stop right now--

Spock pulled back, puzzled. “Did you just attempt to Vulcan nerve pinch me?”

“It didn’t work, huh,” Jim said, dropping his hand.

“The nerve pinch requires you to project a small amount of telepathic energy into the pressure point,” Spock said. “Humans are psi-null.”

“Oh, right. You told me that once.”

“I do not understand,” Spock said, eyebrows furrowed together. He hadn’t released Jim, but at least he was no longer trying to _fuck Jim’s mouth_ with his own. Jim trembled slightly, and Spock pulled him closer in response, which was exactly what Jim _didn’t_ need at the moment, since it made everything--well, harder. In so many different ways. “I did not miscalculate. You are sexually aroused: your pupils are dilated, your respiration is elevated, your phallus is--”

“Nope, we are not going there,” Jim said, before Spock could describe exactly what his _phallus_ was doing, Jesus Christ.

“Is it possible that your body merely responding to external stimuli and that you are not actually interested in pursuing such a relationship with me?”

“I _am_. God, you have no idea how much I am ‘interested in pursuing a relationship with you’. But I’m not going to--to have sex with you while you’re high on some pollen!” Jim yelped, finally yanking himself away. “You don’t want this. I know you don’t want this.”

“That is blatantly untrue,” Spock said, following him as he backed away.

“It _is_ ,” Jim said, but it sounded like a plea. “Spock, please. Just go see Bones, will you?”

“I have no desire to ‘see Bones’ in this state,” Spock said, revolted.

“That’s not what I--for a medical exam, dammit!”

Spock stopped, looking frustrated, which was kind of fascinating. Jim had seen Spock angry, confused, and freaked out these past couple of days, but never sexually frustrated. “And if I’m not ‘high’ on some pollen?”

“ _Then_ we can talk.”

Spock straightened, looking more like his old self. “I accept your terms,” he said, and Jim smiled a little helplessly.

“Goodnight, Spock.”

“Goodnight, Jim.”

When the door swished shut behind Spock's back, Jim immediately fumbled the comm out of his pocket, fingers trembling. He was so _fucking_ turned on, but if it turned out that Spock really was interested in Jim without being under the influence, then Jim wasn’t about to steal that from _this_ Jim.

“Lucifer, get me out of here you goddamn bast--”

* * *

"--ard."

Jim stumbled when he materialized in the--transporter (funny, Lucifer), managed to catch himself before he toppled over, then swayed on uncertain feet. He was, once again, _incredibly_ drunk, and now also _incredibly_ turned on.

“Jesus fucking Christ I hate you so fucking much,” Jim growled.

Lucifer looked mildly impressed at his level of vehemence and the percentage of curse words per normal words. "Welcome back."

“Sex pollen, _really_?”

“You said you wanted a Spock who _wanted_ you. That Spock most definitely wanted you.”

“He was under the influence! He didn’t know what he wanted!”

“Hm,” Lucifer said. “I have to say, I admire your integrity, Captain. A lesser man would have jumped at such an opportunity.”

“I--” Jim said, but stumbled over his words as his liquor-drenched brain came to a startling conclusion. He knew what was wrong. He knew why he didn’t stick around in that universe, or any other universe, why he pushed Spock away. He knew, now, and he was so incredibly fucked. “I’m going to bed,” he said, weakly.

“À demain, mon capitaine.”

Jim didn’t even bother denying it, just staggered out of the transporter room as Lucifer took himself off to wherever he went after their little meetings.

He really wasn’t all that surprised when he found Spock loitering around the hallway, likely having some perfectly logical reason why he was standing in front of the captain’s quarters with his hands behind his back. Jim braced himself for impact, wondering what the hell Lucifer did to him this time, but Spock just glanced at Jim’s face, then back down at his feet.

“I wish to apologize for my actions the previous night,” Spock said, stilted. “I was out of line.”

The nearly identical phrase shot heat up Jim’s spine to flood all over his face. One of Spock’s eyebrows shot up. Yep. Time to get into his quarters before his alcohol soaked libido made him do something he would _really_ regret, like climb up all over Spock.

“S’fine,” Jim said, brushing past Spock to get to his door.

Spock’s expression abruptly changed from apologetic and slightly confused to something else entirely. “You are inebriated. And you are--” He cut himself off, eyes narrowed. “You were in the sickbay earlier this evening.”

“So?” Jim said, opening his door. Then he abruptly frowned and turned to Spock. “Wait, are you keeping tabs on me?”

“And you smell of human musk,” Spock said, completely ignoring Jim’s relevant question to stalk in after him, expression growing stormier with each step.

It took a minute for Jim’s muddled brain to understand just what was pissing Spock off so much, but then his eyes widened and he said, “Wait, no. You have got it _so_ wrong.”

Spock didn’t look entirely convinced, but at least he stopped prowling towards Jim like he was going to start up with the strangling again. He folded his arms behind his back and glared at Jim expectantly, which was entirely unfair because it wasn’t like _Jim_ was following him around, demanding answers for questions he hadn’t even asked.

“What are you doing?” Jim finally asked, hesitantly.

For a moment, Spock looked like he was asking himself the same question. Then he squared his shoulders and said, “Captain, it has come to my attention that your behavior in the past week has been--aberrant.”

“Everyone can have a bad week, Spock,” Jim said, walking unsteadily over to his desk. If he had to have this conversation, he would at least have it sitting down. “That doesn’t mean you need to start checking up on me.”

“No,” Spock said, and for a moment he looked frustrated, though less with the sexual frustration and more with the ‘why are humans so frustrating’ frustration. “I was merely con--curious.”

Jim sighed, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. “It’s nothing, Spock. Just working through something.”

“Is there anything I can do to assist?”

“Trust me, you already have,” Jim said.

“I do not understand--”

“Don’t worry about it, Spock.”

“But I have done nothing.”

“Just--not right now.” Jim opened his eyes again. Spock had stepped closer to the desk, eyebrows drawn down tight in a mixture of confusion and lingering frustration. Jim smiled at him, sadly. “I’m tired, Spock. I’m going to go to bed.”

Spock opened his mouth, likely to argue, then shook his head once in obvious annoyance and instead said, “Captain--”

“Good night, Spock,” Jim said, firmly.

Spock pressed his lips together in a firm line and left Jim’s quarters without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild warning for pollen-related sexual aggressiveness.


	7. Chapter 7

“What I want to know,” Bones was saying before he even finished walking through the door, “is what the devil you said to that green-blooded meddler to make him so pissed at me.”

Jim looked up from the report he had been trying (and failing) to read as Bones dropped down into the chair across from him with what sounded a lot like an old man’s ‘harrumph.’ Jim set his PADD to the side. Bones didn’t often visit Jim in his quarters without prior plans unless he had something pressing to gripe about.

“Spock? Pissed?” Although Jim had prepared himself for superior Vulcan disapproval that morning on the bridge, Spock had been the image of Vulcan propriety.

"Oh he's pissed alright. Don't let that super Vulcan behavior fool you. I went to visit Carol in the science labs earlier and the damn goblin started lecturing me about being _faithful_. Do you know how wonderful it was trying to convince Carol I had no idea what the hell Spock was talking about and that I'm not actually a cheating bastard?"

"Oh man," Jim said, guiltily.

"I knew it!" Bones said, pointing an accusing finger at Jim’s chest. "What the hell did you say? And you better explain yourself to Carol, Jimmy, I don't think she fully believed me."

"He jumped to the wrong conclusion," Jim sighed.

"How?” Bones demanded.

Jim snatched up his PADD again. That report he'd been reading was awfully important, and he really should spend this time catching up on all his paperwork. Right now.

"Jim."

Jim sighed and abandoned his bluff, tossing the PADD back down. "Look, he knew we were drinking together last night, but when I left your office--well, one thing led to another and he thought you and I--"

"You and I--" Bones repeated, slowly starting to look horrified.

"That we. You know."

"Jesus Mary Joseph," Bones yelped, almost shooting out of his chair in horror. He gripped the armrests. “He thinks we’re bumping uglies?”

Jim winced. “A bit more colorfully than I would describe it, but yeah, essentially.”

“Jim!”

“I _told_ him he got the wrong idea.”

Bones remained horrified for several offensive seconds before he sank back into his chair with an annoyed sigh. “Well, that explains why he wants to murder me.”

“You know Spock, always about the proper regulations,” Jim said, bitterly. “A captain can’t possibly do anything that might make him appear, you know, human, in front of his crew.”

“And that’s why he was lecturing me about _fidelity_ ,” Bones said, voice strained. “No, Jim, I don’t think that’s it. He’s got it in his damn fool head that I’m cheating on you.”

“Spock’s my friend,” Jim said. “Sort of. He probably thought he was supporting me.”

“He was going to murder me,” Bones said.

Jim rolled his eyes. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“And probably Carol, too.” Bones frowned. “Come to think of it, he always looks like he wants to murder Carol.”

“If Spock’s going to murder anyone, it’s going to be me,” Jim said, tiredly.

“Or whoever you’re sleeping with.” Bones sank back into his chair, steepling his fingers together. It made him look like Spock. He would probably hate being told that. "Just who are you hooking up with on the ship, anyway?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Jim sighed.

"Try me."

Jim considered spilling everything to Bones. He knew that whatever he said to Bones wouldn't leave this room, but when he opened his mouth, he thought about the wishes, who granted the wishes, and the result of the wishes, and closed his mouth again, dropping his eyes to his desk. Bones was overprotective on a good day and if Jim told him all that, he would probably keep Jim in stasis and only let him out for meetings with the admiralty.

"Does this have anything to do with what's been going on with you lately, kid?" Bones asked, expression softening.

"Yeah," Jim admitted.

"Jim," Bones said, slowly, as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. "Are you in love?"

Jim didn't say anything out loud, but he was sure his flinch was enough of an answer.

“With _who_?”

“Leave it, Bones.”

"Jim--"

"I said leave it," Jim said, rubbing his face with both his hands. “I’ll talk to Carol, alright? Sorry you had to deal with that.”

Bones looked like he desperately wanted to push it, and Jim knew that one day he would have to tell him. Maybe not everything, but at least some of the key players. But they had been friends for long enough that Bones knew when not to force a matter, so he just nodded once and said, “And Spock?”

“What about Spock?”

“Are you going to correct his misconception or am I going to have to watch my back every time I’m in his presence?”

“He won’t bother you anymore.”

“Well, I don’t want you to _off_ him or anything. No need to go to extremes.”

“What? No!” Jim said, appalled. “Why would you even think that?”

Bones chuffed a small laugh, pushing himself to his feet again with a grunt. He really was an old man in a thirty-three year old body. “I was kidding. Get some sleep, kid. You look like hell.”

Jim managed a small smile in return, but it dropped from his face when the door shut behind Bones and, predictably, Lucifer appeared in his place.

“So, Captain Kirk,” Lucifer said, reclining back in the chair like a lazy cadet. “It’s been seven days, and you’re on your seventh wish. What will it be? Marriage? Children?”

“No,” Jim said. He twirled the small globe from Ardana. The small city of Stratos hovered just above the surface, spinning at a slower pace from the planet’s surface. “Who are you, anyway? I mean, your real name.”

“Is that your wish? To know my real name?”

Jim shrugged, stopping the globe with his finger. “Sure.”

“That’s boring.”

“Will you tell me anyway?”

Lucifer considered this for a moment, then shrugged. “Why not. I’m Q.” When Jim just looked at him blankly, he leaned forward. “That’s short for Q.”

“Uh,” Jim said. The name didn’t sound familiar, but Jim felt a little like Q expected him to know it. “What are you?”

“I am a Q.”

“Okay,” Jim said, slowly. “From where?”

“Q Continuum.”

Jim sighed. “If you didn’t want to tell me, you could have just said so.”

‘Q’ shrugged, but didn’t seem that interested in defending his point. “Lesser beings tend to have trouble comprehending the nature of the Q,” he said, magnanimously.

“Right,” Jim said, dryly. 

“As invigorating as this conversation has been, I do actually have other stuff I need to do. Can we proceed or would you like to know my whole life story as well?”

“You’re kind of a jerk, aren’t you?”

Q shrugged unapologetically. “So, what will it be? What new Spock do you want today?”

“None,” Jim said, bitterly.

“Oh? No longer interested in our Vulcan friend?”

“What’s the point? These universes aren’t _my_ universe.”

“Here we go,” Q said, leaning back into his chair. Jim jumped out of his own.

“All these wishes do is show me what I could have had in a different life,” Jim said, pacing behind his desk.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what wishes are supposed to do?”

“You’re wrong,” Jim snapped. “This is me, correcting you.”

“Every universe I sent you to was exactly what you asked for,” Q said, standing up. “I gave you what you wanted. It was your decision whether or not to remain in the universe.”

“I shouldn’t need--I want the Spock in _this_ universe,” Jim exploded, slamming both his hands on the table. “I don’t want an overlord, or a forced bond, or--or a _drugged_ Spock, I want _this_ Spock!”

“Okay,” Q said.

“What?” Jim demanded.

“That’s easy enough. You could have just said something,” Q said, chastising. 

He snapped and--there was Spock, in a black sleeping robe, looking as startled as Spock could look. Spock stumbled, having been in the middle of a step before Q rudely jerked him out of his rooms. His dark eyes quickly surveyed his new surroundings, landing on Q and blinking once, before flicking to Jim expectantly.

“That’s seven wishes,” Q said. He smiled. “I hope you enjoy this one.”

Jim would have loved to answer, but he was too busy staring at Spock, eyes wide. 

Out of his periphery, he saw Q shrug to himself, waggle his fingers, then disappear--this time probably for good. Jim might have felt something about that, if he wasn’t too busy feeling a nauseating mix of confusion, longing, and bloodcurdling horror.

“I can explain,” Jim said, after a moment of silent staring.

Spock looked at him expectantly.

Jim coughed.

“What did your--acquaintance--mean by ‘seven wishes’?” Spock persisted, when Jim didn’t say anything further.

“Oh, that,” Jim said.

Spock lifted an eyebrow.

So, he wasn’t going to cut Jim any slack. Jim’s shoulders slumped and he looked away. “It was a joke,” he tried, weakly.

“Although I am unfamiliar with the intricacies of the human sense of humor, I do not believe that was, as you say, ‘a joke’.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Jim said, going back to his desk. 

Spock appeared thoughtful, as if he was coming to conclusions Jim seriously did not want him to come to. “Somehow, although highly improbable, you were offered seven wishes,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jim admitted, resigned. 

“These past six days, you have had six of your wishes granted,” Spock said, still mostly to himself. “This would account for your recent aberrant behavior.”

“Yes,” Jim said. He pulled out his chair and made to sit down.

“And your seventh wish was for--me?” Spock said.

“Would you look at the time!” Jim said, leaping to his feet before he could even fully sit in chair. “I just remembered the urgent meeting I have with Admiral Komack--”

“Captain, it is 2345 hours.”

“Well you know what they say, Komack waits for no man,” Jim said, urgently, and hurried to the door to his quarters.

“I do not recall any scheduled meeting,” Spock said, but Jim had already dove the door and was now scurrying down the hall as fast as his legs could take him.

Not one of his proudest moments, but Jim wasn't above hiding under beds or fleeing his own quarters when faced with a situation that would leave him either dead or wishing he were dead.

* * *

That night, Jim slept on the observation deck. Just in case.

* * *

Avoiding Spock would be so much easier if Spock hadn’t decided he didn’t want to be avoided. Jim finally had to resort to employing yeomans to scout the perimeter before he made a mad dash from the bridge to his quarters at the end of his shift. 

“All’s clear, Captain,” Yeoman Rand said, cheerfully. Jim peered out the doors of the lift, first to the left, then to the right, before sprinting down the hall.

He made it all the way to his quarters without being murdered by any Vulcans. Jim leaned his forehead against the door, sighing with relief. He was being a humongous coward, but, really, he could go a few more days shirking the inevitable humiliating conversation that may or may not end with his gory death.

Jim looked down the hall.

Spock stared at him over Chekov’s shoulder, eyes wide.

“Crap!” Jim yelped. Spock grabbed Chekov by the shoulder to move him to the side, striding purposefully towards Jim. Jim clumsily jabbed at the control panel to his room, cursing under his breath, then dove through the doors as soon as they cracked open and smacked his hand against the ‘close’ button. The doors swished shut on the face of a very irritated Vulcan.

Spock was going to murder him _so_ dead, and Jim couldn’t really blame him. 

“Captain,” Spock said, not raising his voice but still easily understandable through the door. “You will have to speak with me eventually.”

“Eventually,” Jim agreed, leaning against the door.

There was silence. Jim turned his head to the side to press his ear against the door, listening intently. There was nothing. Spock must have left. Jim’s shoulders slumped and he sighed, banging the back of his head against the door.

“Captain, please refrain from injuring yourself in the meantime,” Spock said.

“Jesus Christ!” Jim yelped, then scurried away from the door, blushing.

* * *

One good thing about Spock was that he was reliably consistent. Although he was hunting Jim down like a big green-blooded hound off duty, he never brought their personal life onto the bridge. Which meant Jim could afford to let his guard down during shift, at least a little bit.

“Captain.”

Jim leaped out of his chair.

Every member of his crew turned to face Jim, because what he really needed was an audience for his complete meltdown. He closed his eyes. “Right, yes, don’t mind me, just have a kink in my back,” Jim said, determinedly not blushing. He rubbed at his lower back, grunting for good measure. No one believed him, but at least they turned back to their stations.

Spock lifted an eyebrow at him.

“What can I do for you, Commander?” Jim asked, in his best serious captain voice.

“You have received a confidential message from Admiral Komack,” Spock said, equally serious. 

Jim thought he saw Uhura jerk in surprise out of the periphery of his vision. He shot her a glance, but she turned so quickly back to her station that her hair whipped behind her like the snap of a cat’s tail.

“Alright,” Jim sighed, because he really shouldn’t have been surprised. Admiral Komack had an uncanny ability to contact Jim at the worst possible time. “Patch it through to Briefing Room 2.”

He was a little surprised when Spock followed him onto the lift, but merely edged to the far corner, folding his hands behind his back. He glanced up at Spock. Spock stared straight ahead, his own arms folded behind his back. Jim turned back to the doors. Well, this was awkward. Somehow, he had thought Spock would leap to the opportunity to interrogate Jim about the wishes the second they were alone together. Instead, Spock appeared coolly disinterested.

This was a good thing. If Spock no longer cared what the wishes were, Jim would no longer need to dash from room to room. Maybe they could even have a normal conversation, or play a civil game of chess.

“So,” Jim said, testing the waters.

Spock turned severe black eyes on him.

Or maybe Jim will need to hire a whole army of yeoman to case the ship for him if he ever wanted to go anywhere but his quarters or the bridge. Perhaps he should post a guard at the bathroom, as well.

In the briefing room, Jim took the seat across from the view screen. Spock stood at the door, hands folded behind his back. Jim looked at the view screen, then at Spock, then slumped into his chair.

“There’s no message, is there.”

Spock said nothing.

"You lied," Jim accused.

"I did not," Spock protested. "There is a message. I merely--exaggerated its importance."

"And its confidentiality?" 

"I apologize, Captain, but I could see no other means to hold a private conference with you and had to employ--distasteful methods."

"Why, though?” Jim asked, a little desperately. “Can’t you just let it be?”

Spock considered Jim’s question seriously, then said, “No.”

“No,” Jim repeated, then put his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands.

“Will you tell me your wishes, Captain?” Spock asked, and his voice was so gentle that it made something hurt in Jim’s chest. What the hell was he doing. Spock was a Vulcan; he wouldn’t care enough to actively break Jim’s heart. And, no matter how closely Jim guarded his heart, Jim _wasn’t_ a coward. Although, the inevitable rejection was going to be terrible.

“I just--wanted you to like me,” Jim admitted to the table.

“You wished for my admiration?” 

“Yeah,” Jim said, glossing over the _exact_ wishes without much remorse. What Spock didn’t know wouldn’t hurt Jim. “But Lucifer--Q--kept sending me to different universes and--none were right.”

“How so?”

Jim looked up at Spock, even though he was able to read Spock’s face as he was his voice--that is to say, not at all. “They weren’t the real one,” Jim finally admitted.

“And that was when you wished for me.”

Jim flinched, but nodded, not looking away from Spock’s fathomless eyes. Time to face the music, as Bones would say. 

Spock strode across the room until he reached the table, hands still firmly clasped behind his back. Although his expression was carefully devoid of any emotion, his eyes didn’t fit with the ‘perfect Vulcan’ look. They made Jim feel lost, and confused, and they made him remember how to hope. 

“Why did you run?” Spock asked, because he didn’t believe in pulling his punches. “You are the most fearless men I know.”

“When it comes to fighting, yeah, or daring rescues. I don’t do well with rejection. At least, not from people I truly care about.” Jim dropped his eyes to the side. There was a whole world of meaning behind that confession, but there really was no need to bring up childhood trauma to lighten the mood.

Gentle fingertips reached under Jim’s chin to tilt his head back up, before they dropped away again, leaving Jim with his breath caught in his throat. “I would not reject you. Did it occur to you that you already had not only my admiration, but my respect and loyalty as well?” Spock said.

“Oh,” Jim said. It had, actually, he knew that Spock would give up his life for any one person on the _Enterprise_ , but it wasn’t the same. Jim didn’t just want the devotion Spock had for a captain. It begged the question: who did Spock admire, the captain or the man?

Something must have shown on Jim’s face, because then Spock said, “I regret that I have caused you to doubt my love for you.”

“Your--your _what_?”

It was Spock’s turn to glance away, but he looked back just as quickly. “It took you seven wishes to realize that none would be good enough because they were not ‘your’ reality, correct?”

“Well, yeah, but wait--”

“Had I been granted seven wishes, I would only have required three: that I would have the ability to express my love to you, that I knew if you reciprocated my love, and that you would cease needlessly endangering yourself.”

“It’s not _needless_ ,” Jim protested.

“There are very few situations where both the captain and the first officer are required for a _cultural survey_ \--”

“Wait, wait,” Jim said, flinging a hand up. “Back up a minute. You would wish to know--if I love you?”

Spock stiffened and looked a bit like he wanted to make the same desperate escape Jim had made the other day, but Spock was made of sterner stuff and just nodded, once.

“I do,” Jim said, gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles were white. “I do love you.”

And then Spock smiled, just a hint of one. Jim stood and circled the table, stopping so that they were nearly toe-to-toe.

“So,” Jim said, his own smile stretching into a wide grin, and he ducked his head, embarrassed at how happy he was. “Does this mean I get to kiss you?”

“It would be my greatest pleasure,” Spock said, finally unclasping his hands from behind his back to grip Jim by the shoulders. Jim couldn’t tell if the tremor he felt was from himself or from Spock’s hands. He reached up, wrapping one hand around the back of Spock’s neck to pull him down.

Finally, Q had gotten something right.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two-for-one! I couldn't bring myself to post the last chapter without posting the epilogue, so you guys get the completed work in one go. Thanks for reading!

  
**EPILOGUE**

**WISH #1**  
Pre-Reform Vulcan

As Spock passed by Jim's room, he backtracked a couple of steps to look in. Jim was sitting on his sleeping roll, hunched over a large tome, silently mouthing along with what he was reading.

Spock leaned against the door. From the moment he'd set eyes on the human, he'd had to fight a pull, as if those vibrant blue eyes were drawing him in like small planets. 

Now though, three weeks after Jim had crash landed into Spock's life, Spock found that he couldn't imagine life without him. Being one of the rare telepaths in his clan and therefore elevated nearly to godliness, it was--nice having someone to speak with on an equal level. Jim didn't know--couldn't possibly know--the liberties Spock allowed him to take.

"Spock," Jim said, drawing Spock out of his reverie. Jim smiled. "Hey, can you help me with this conjugation?"

Spock hesitated. He made it a point never to enter Jim's space, allowing him this small amount of privacy. But Jim just held the book out expectantly, still smiling.

"Of course," Spock said, stepping into the room with all the confidence of the warrior he was and none of the uncertainty of the lonely man he pretended not to be. Jim scooted over and Spock hesitated again, until Jim impatiently patted the roll next to him.

Almost before Spock finished lowering himself onto the sleeping roll, Jim leaned against him, balancing the book on both their laps. Spock gasped and snapped a scandalized look at Jim, who grinned, unabashed. Cautiously, certain that he was breaking about half a dozen rules, Spock relaxed into the touch. Jim's grin widened like he had just won something huge.

Perhaps it was time to upgrade Jim's sleeping quarters. Spock didn't have much space, but maybe Jim would be open to the idea of sharing sleeping quarters with him.

"Yes," Jim said. Spock started guiltily. Could it be possible this human had unknown psychic abilities? Or was Spock projecting? 

"Whatever you're thinking, Spock, my answer is yes."

Spock drew in a breath through his teeth and carefully closed the book, setting it to the side. Then he turned and grabbed Jim by the front of the shirt, jerking him forward and into a sound kiss that Jim laughed brightly into.

* * *

  
**WISH #2**  
Babble On

Spock had not intended to return to the sickbay. He meant what he said when he told Jim he would return in the morning, but he found himself heading there anyway, a data PADD in one hand as a feeble excuse.

Jim was sitting up, staring at the screen attached to his bed by a metal arm. Although Spock could only see his profile from this angle, Jim looked--hurt. Not due to his many healing injuries, but somewhat like he was reconsidering his place aboard the _Enterprise_.

That would not do.

“Captain, although I had not planned to return until the morning, I wished to amend this incorrect notion that I dislike you,” Spock found himself saying. He held up a hand to stem Jim’s inevitable flow of words. “Despite your verbose disposition, you are valued not only as an esteemed captain within Starfleet, but also as my trusted friend.”

Jim’s mouth hung open for several seconds. He closed it with a click of teeth. “Spock--”

“I wish to apologize if I ever led you to believe otherwise.”

“Spock, you’re just--so important to me,” Jim said, earnestly. “I don’t think you know just how much I adore you and hearing that you actually treasure me as a friend is like having all my birthdays at once, not that you would really understand what that means because I don’t think Vulcans actually celebrate birth--”

Spock leaned forward, cutting off Jim’s stream of consciousness by pressing their lips together.

For the second time that evening, Jim was shocked into silence. Interesting. 

“You just kissed me,” Jim breathed.

Deciding that this was a good time to take precautionary measure in case Jim thought to continue ‘running his mouth,’ as the doctor would put it, Spock leaned forward and kissed him again.

It truly was an effective tactic. Jim was silent for a long time.

* * *

  
**WISH #3**  
Kali-farr

Kirk kept up a low-level mental hum the entire shuttle ride to the embassy, as effective a shield as the ones Vulcans were taught to raise at a young age. Ever since Spock had informed him about the healer, Jim completely blocked him out.

Spock didn't like that.

From the moment the bond had sprung into their minds, fully formed, Kirk had been completely open to him. There had been times when his thoughts were faintly blurred and didn’t translate perfectly (Spock was still puzzled by Kirk’s fleeting annoyance towards the demon ‘Lucifer’) but after a few days it had settled and become as strong--if not stronger--than his familial bonds, completely overtaking the weak threads that remained from the farce of a bond with T’Pring.

But Kirk was not a suitable mate. He was illogical, irrational, _human_ \--

Spock’s communicator buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket, flipping it open. There was a new message from an unknown number.

**at the embassy - jtk**

Spock closed his communicator with a snap and spent the rest of the shuttle ride inexplicably irritated. He did not understand why Kirk would send him a message instead of just using the direct line. It was ineffective. Another reason why they would not be suited as bondmates.

It was simple to find Kirk at the embassy. Spock merely had to follow his eyes, and there Kirk was. Kirk stood at the top of the stairs, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. Kirk, whose mind had the same attractive pull as a small sun. Kirk, who knew about th’y’la, although he was under the mistaken assumption it was a vegetable. Kirk, who would no longer be Spock’s bondmate.

“Hey,” he said, when Spock walked up to him. The eyes that were so bright before seemed oddly sad. “Before we break our bond, can I just--”

Spock raised his eyebrow. For some reason, his heart rate had increased by 20%.

“Can I just try something?”

“You may,” Spock said, although he should not have agreed to it so readily. Kirk was unreliable. Impulsive. Dangerous. But Kirk just smiled at him and reached forward to take Spock’s arm, pulling his hand out in front of him.

“I looked it up,” Kirk said, incomprehensibly, then slid his fingers down two of Spock’s own. A jolt similar to an electrical current shot up Spock’s arm and down his spine, and Kirk’s smile became a little sad, a little wistful. “A married couple should kiss at least once, right?” he said.

Spock grabbed Kirk by the wrist. 

“What--” Kirk said, eyes widening.

Spock hauled him down the stairs, back to the shuttle that would take them back to the Academy.

“Spock, what are you doing?” Kirk asked.

“I am not sure,” Spock said.

“Don’t you want to break the bond?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Kirk said, his tone a mix of wonder and confusion. “Does this mean I get to keep calling you ‘husband’?”

Spock thought maybe he was making a horrible decision, one at least equal to rejecting the Vulcan Science Academy. He was being illogical. He didn't even know Kirk. He was being _foolish_. But, despite the many reasons why he should say ‘no,’ Spock said, “Yes.”

When Kirk smiled at him, looking like he didn’t know what he was doing either but willing to ‘go along with it,’ as a human would say, Spock thought this might be his best decision, maybe even better than when he rejected the Vulcan Science Academy.

“Your dad is going to _kill_ you,” Kirk said, gleefully.

Spock sighed.

* * *

  
**WISH #4**  
Monarchy vs. Anarchy

“Is he still out there?” Nyota asked, moving the blinds aside to peer out the window.

“Just because I oppose the monarchy doesn’t mean I oppose _you_!” Kirk shouted from where he was on the sidewalk just outside the palace, only slightly muffled by the glass. He wasn’t allowed on the grounds, but that didn’t stop him from standing just outside the gates and shouting his fool head off.

“That’s a yes,” Gaila sighed.

“I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to accomplish by shouting at a building--”

Spock flung out the window and shouted, “I _am_ the monarchy!” making both Nyota and Gaila jump and stare, eyes wide.

“People with opposite political standpoints make relationships work all the time, Spock!” Kirk shouted, then paused, as if surprised at his own words.

“Relationship?” Nyota repeated in disbelief. “Did he just say relationship?”

“Yep,” Gaila said.

“Does he know who Spock _is_?”

“Spock, don’t,” Gaila said.

“Don’t what?” Nyota asked, turning from the window to look at Spock. Her face fell when she caught sight of his expression. “You’re not actually going to go _out_ there?”

“I merely wish to address the illogic of his statement,” Spock said, striding to the door.

“Spock, no,” Nyota groaned, pressing a hand to her face.

Spock knew he should have listened to Nyota and Gaila, but that knowledge didn’t stop him from walking purposefully through the gilded halls of his father’s palace as if he knew exactly what he was doing, through the lavish gardens, and out the gates onto the sidewalk, where everyone walking by froze mid step to stare. The paparazzi, who had set up across the street from Kirk to document the unfolding drama, were stirred up into the frenzy of a starved le-matya on a fresh kill.

Kirk appeared ready to bolt, but he bravely held his ground in the face of an irritated Vulcan stalking towards him.

“You lied to me,” Spock accused.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t see you jumping to tell me exactly who _you_ were,” Kirk said, folding his arms over his chest. There was a faint tremor going through his fingers.

“With good reason, obviously.”

“Maybe,” Kirk said through gritted teeth, like it hurt him to agree with a monarch. “We both had our own reasons for not wanting to share who we were.” Suddenly, Kirk’s face changed, going from belligerent to determined. “The point is, who cares? So what if you’re royalty and I’m not? Your mother wasn’t a princess before she married your father.”

“My mother was a teacher, not an anti-monarchist.”

“So I can make some modifications,” Kirk said, desperately. “I can change my job title, Spock. ‘James Kirk, Anti-Monarchist’ to ‘James Kirk, Anti-Monarchist and Prince Consort.’ Just give me a chance.”

“It is impossible,” Spock said. He had read enough of Kirk’s publications to know Kirk would never fully be able to let go of his (surprisingly well-reasoned) ideas.

“It’s only impossible if we don’t try,” Kirk argued.

"How can I trust you?"

"You--okay, I get why you wouldn't immediately trust me, but can't I have the chance to prove that you _can_?"

“Even if I could trust you, an emperor cannot consort with one who wishes him to be _overthrown_ , Kirk. It would be a weakness exploited by rivals and enemies alike,” Spock said, shaking his head.

For a moment, Kirk seemed like he was going to continue arguing, and Spock wished he _would_ , that he could expose the holes in Spock’s logic and find a way to make this work, but then his shoulders slumped and he dropped his eyes, defeated. He glanced up at Spock’s face one more time, then turned to leave, his expression of hurt acceptance eternalized by the dozens of cameras flashing at them.

Spock grabbed his arm.

“Spock, what--” Jim said, turning back to him, and Spock yanked him forward and kissed him, consequences be damned.

The picture of their kiss ran on the cover of every newspaper for a full two weeks.

* * *

  
**WISH #5**  
Morning After

Jim didn’t think he would ever fully understand why he decided to join Starfleet. He thought it maybe he had to prove that he wasn’t as worthless as Spock thought he was, but after he started classes he got this wild idea in his head that maybe he actually _could_ be a captain.

Boy, that would make Frank laugh.

But when he thought back to that fateful day, after Spock had so rudely tossed him out, he just had strange, hazy memories about worrying about missing a shuttle. He’d known about the shuttle, of course, everyone in Riverside had, but he hadn’t exactly been rushing to catch it before Spock.

Spock. Spock, who had been stalking across campus, shoulders set, but who was now standing completely still, staring at Jim from across the quad.

Jim wiggled his fingers at him. Spock’s eyes widened further.

A crowd of students walked between them and when they finally passed, Spock was gone.

* * *

Spock had _severely_ underestimated James Kirk.

While it wasn’t against school regulations to pull up student records, Spock could admit to himself that it was probably excessive to read through his written assignments.

James Kirk--who had only introduced himself as ‘Kirk’ to Spock--was nothing like the unambitious, compelling young man from the bar, the one who wasted all of his units on cheap alcohol and made sexual advances on unsuspecting Vulcans. Not only had Kirk excelled on all his aptitude tests as a youth, but he was now in in the top percentile all his classes. That drunk degenerate who had enraptured Spock so completely was actually a genius, by human standards. Maybe even beyond.

Spock was in trouble.

* * *

“Are you staring at that girl again?” Bone demanded, poking the side of Jim’s cheek.

Jim blinked and turned back to Bones, rubbing his cheek. He grinned amiably, but even he could tell it didn’t reach his eyes--he didn’t need Bones’ sudden concerned look to confirm it.

“It’s not like you to get so hung up on a girl like this, Jimmy.” Bones turned to look at the couple Jim had been staring at, eyebrows drawn together. “I admit she’s beautiful, but it looks like she prefers them tall, dark, and emotionless.”

Jim shoved his hands in his pockets, shoulders slumping. It had been a week since Jim had seen Spock, and in that time it appeared Spock had found himself a new girlfriend. “I wasn’t looking at _her_.”

Bones took a moment to digest that, looking at Jim, then back to Spock. “Jim, no.”

“Trust me, I know,” Jim said, kicking at a stone. And really, he shouldn’t feel this gutted. Spock had already made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing to do with Jim. Why wouldn’t he move on to gorgeous polygots with incredible legs? “It was a mistake.”

“You mean, you already--?” Bones said, horrified.

“ _I_ was the mistake,” Jim corrected, slumping further.

They walked in silence. In fifteen meters, they would cross paths with Spock and Uhura. Spock would continue to pretend Jim didn’t exist.

“Do you want me to beat him up?” Bones asked, seriously.

Jim laughed, startled, dragging his eyes from the ground to grin at Bones. “He’s a _Vulcan_. He’d wipe the floor with you.”

“Hm,” Bones said. “I could always inject him with something. No one would need to know; the evidence would disappear within minutes.”

Jim laughed again, sliding a hand down his face. “I don’t want you to _kill_ him, Bones.”

“Kill? Me? Never. That would be against my code. But if an unfortunate accident were to happen...”

Jim shook his head, grinning widely and feeling much better than he had in weeks. Still, when they passed Spock and Uhura, Jim’s eyes were drawn forward, captivated, even though he knew better. Spock was staring at him, eyes wide and--wounded, as if it were Jim who had told him to leave that day. He looked _longing_ and, without thinking, Jim reached forward and grabbed Spock’s wrist.

“Kirk!” Uhura said, scandalized.

“Jim,” Bones said, quietly. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Jim ignored them both, staring searchingly up at Spock. He said, “Why are you looking at me like that, Spock?”

“I made a mistake,” Spock said.

Jim jerked his hand back, stung. He shoved it into his pocket again and scowled. “I know. You made _that_ abundantly clear.”

“--when I told you to leave,” Spock finished, almost a gasp.

“Oh,” said Jim, eyes widening. “Really?”

“Yes,” Spock said.

Jim could feel the ridiculous grin stretch across his face and Spock’s eyes flickered down to Jim’s shoulder, as if he couldn’t handle looking at Jim’s abundant emotions.

“ _Really_?” Jim repeated, gleeful.

Spock sighed through his nose, as if he regretted saying anything at all, but Jim knew that was a giant lie.

Jim leaned forward, not enough to be inappropriate, and said, quietly, “I really want to kiss you right now.”

Spock pressed his lips together, then turned around. “Come with me.”

Jim, of course, followed, leaving a completely flabbergasted Uhura and an equally resigned Bones behind.

* * *

  
**WISH #6**  
Feral Spock

"Come."

Spock stepped through the door to Jim's quarters, hands clasped behind his back. Jim was at his desk, scrolling through a data PADD, but he set it to the side when he saw it was Spock. He smiled wryly.

"Spock, glad to see you're better," Jim said, and his voice was somewhat wistful.

"It was not sex pollen," Spock said, as greeting.

Jim blinked. "What?"

"The pollen I inhaled on Bopak III removed my inhibitions, such as how alcohol removes the inhibitions in humans--"

"Wait," Jim interrupted, holding up a hand. "Are you telling me right now that if you didn’t have your inhibitions, you would constantly want to jump me?"

"I do not wish to jump you, Captain," Spock said, appalled.

"Oh," Jim said, deflating.

"I wish to have sex with you," Spock corrected.

"Oh!" Jim said, in an entirely different tone. "Oh, wow. Sure, I mean, of course!" He covered his mouth with one hand, going a little red. "Do you mean, uh, now?"

"If you are available."

Jim's eyes danced as he pushed up from his chair. "Oh my god, I'm so right, aren't I? You _do_ always want to make out."

"I believe 'making out' requires considerably less speaking," Spock said, then grabbed Jim by the front of his shirt and drew him in.

  
**WISH #7**  
Reality (Bites)

“You _let_ him kiss you?”

Jim looked up from where Spock was pushing him down on the bed and grinned crookedly. “Well, I’d never made out with royalty before, Spock.”

Spock narrowed his eyes, then dipped his head down and kissed him, slow and thorough and hungry, as if he wanted to erase the emperor’s touch. Jim opened up to him, sliding one hand behind the back of his head and tangling his fingers in his hair. Spock kissed like he did everything else: with the single-minded intent to be perfect. And dammit if he wasn’t already there. Jim groaned into Spock’s mouth, pushing himself up up to try to get more of him, but Spock pulled back and looked at him, eyes dark. 

Because Spock had the singular ability to focus all of his attention on one thing when there were so many _better_ things he could be focusing on, he glared and said, “And the time you were aroused?”

Jim grinned reminiscently. “That Spock _really_ liked me.”

With a growl, Spock shoved Jim back down on the bed, coming down hard on top of him, and Jim laughed, bright and happy.


End file.
